The Unscripted Carer –21st January 2008
It seems a long time since Christmas, so what have we been up to?
Christmas has proved to be an “interesting” mixture of good and bad times. We had made comprehensive arrangements for the in laws to come down over Christmas – with Nicola’s brother fetching them down, and me taking them back. So all the food was sorted out, the presents bought (difficult for Nicola due to her back issues), wrapped etc, and every thing was in place for them to be down for a day or two. However, various last minute issues arose, and the trip was postponed, almost on a daily basis, until it was finally abandoned yesterday, after nearly a month of dithering. You can only how disappointed “she who must be obeyed” was, especially as my own mum has also decided that Leeds is too far to travel from.
It has brought it home to us that for a long time we have done all the travelling, and now we can’t there is a gap. Nicola has decided that it is if we live in Australia, and the parents live in England, and that the distances are just too far to travel – and react accordingly.
The good times came from our local friends and neighbours who seem to accept Nicola’s lack of mobility much more easily and are happy to pop in or for us to drop in on them if Nicola is OK at that time, or delay things if she is not up to a visit at the time.
Nicola has had two sets of cortisone injection, each of which effectively confine her to her bed for 4 to 7 days (and make her much easier to look after as I know where she is, and what she is doing!). We had planned to listen to radio plays that we had recorded, but we decided to “freshen up” the house – which means repainting all surfaces, and moving all the furniture, ornaments, CDs, books …., partly to cheer her up a bit. We have also been impressed by the Dulux “Light and Space” paint range, which really does make the room much brighter. So, a plan was agreed, and Nicola orchestrated things from her bed. We started with the old “blue” room, in which the only remaining “blue” was the paint on the woodwork – this has jarred with me for a while, so I guess this was my own fault!
We are gradually working through the house room by room, and is very rewarding and very hard work – the paint drying time seems to be the critical factor in how quickly we can move on. So far, the “Light and Space” is still impressing us, and we have been able to turn off some of the lights in the completed rooms – so it is a form of “save the planet”, as well as making the house look very different. We have one room left to do, but Nicola is now experimenting with getting in the way again, so I am expecting problems! The first has just happened as she has thrown water all over herself while reading the last sentence!!
We have developed a “neat way” of carrying “small paint tins and brushes in a box (that held dogs “treats”) and up to a few days ago this has worked well for over a year. However, I guess the particular paint tin was a bit heavier than usual, and literally the bottom fell out of the box, and a “full” 2.5 litres of emulsion dropped to the floor. Miraculously half went back into the tin, while the remainder went over my body, face and hair; some went on the wall and lots got trapped in the floor covering. We managed to catch lots of paint in the floor covering and just dumped it outside in a big plastic bag, much feverish activity cleaned up most of the rest, and then Nicola decided I looked like an extra in “Braveheart” – only then did I see my face and hair! Nicola, who had not been around when the excitement started then told me, quite seriously, that the bottom of the box looked a little unsound – a minor understatement perhaps! We have now put loads of tape around a “new” box, I still like the freedom it gives me to carry things around.
Bye for now
Graham
