The art of distraction tuesday

Tuesday stats:

Tesco: Successful, no crying and we got the ‘nice’ cashier
Celebratory ‘we did the shopping’ cake choice: cinnamon bun
Cooked: Fish pie x 2 (one for dinner, one for the freezer)
Kitchen music listened to: Simon and Garfunkel
Tuesday blanket squares completed: five and a bit

I think most people know that when someone has dementia you don’t correct their version of events. So, if they think someone they care about is alive and well, when actually they aren’t, you don’t tell them or every time they are told the truth they have to relive that initial grief. That makes perfect sense.

And if, for example, Mum knows that she didn’t have a cake when we went for coffee a previous week, it really doesn’t matter that actually she sulked so much when I suggested sharing one that she definitely had one to herself. Or that she hasn’t seen a particular friend that she saw two weeks ago for months and months, it’s not worth the argument involved in showing her the calendar to prove her wrong.

But sometimes it is really, really hard to just nod and agree.

This week while we were cooking Mum asked me what I’d been given for my birthday. It’s not my birthday yet, which I reminded her of, but told her that I was very lucky because for Mother’s Day I’d been given flowers by Percy (cocker spaniel) and Norman (grumpy feline). Mum sighed, looked a bit cross and said:

‘I didn’t get any flowers’.

I pointed to the kitchen windowsill and the hyacinths I’d bought two weeks before, the tete a tete I’d bought last week and the daffodils I’d bought for her while we were in Tesco an hour or so earlier.

‘That was not for Mother’s Day though. I didn’t get anything for Mother’s Day.’

I couldn’t help it. I pointed at the gorgeous vase Sister One had bought her, reminded her that I’d sent a Cornish pastie and cream tea hamper, and that Sister Two had taken her to the coast where she’d had a fantastic day out and ‘the best fish pie ever’.

‘Nope’ she told me crossly, crying a little. ‘That was for my birthday’.

I went through the (entirely different) gifts we’d given her for her birthday.

‘None. Of. That. Happened.’ (Mum uses punctuation when she’s cross in a way you can almost hear it. It can be a bit scary, even when you are forty something).

I stood, wondering what to do – agree with events and move on or dispute them and potentially start an argument? (and know that she might only remember for a short while even if I did convince her)

And then, in that gap, as though it suddenly started to dawn that she might possibly have made a mistake, Mum grabbed her back, told me it hurt a lot and started crying. I think her back does hurt sometimes, but I also think it is occasionally (frequently?) used as a distraction technique, most often in Tesco when she can’t find what she is looking for and is feeling very frustrated. Well, two can play at that game:

‘I need some cheese grating for the top of the pie Mum, do you want to cut yourself a slice to nibble on and do that for me?’

And just like that, the tears stopped, the back was forgotten, Mother’s Day and birthday gifts were an irrelevance, and the cheese was found. It turned out quite a significant amount of nibbling was required… 😃

In the end, we made two rather good looking fish pies (probably not quite as good as the Mother’s Day fish pie, to be fair though) and we settled down to a bit of Tuesday blanket making. I’m not allowed to sew the squares together yet as that might have been what caused the complication and tearful phone call last week, and Mum assured me she’d manage to make lots more this week as now she really does understand what she is doing. We’ll see…

For now, I give you The Tuesday Blanket progress:

And a reminder to myself that I probably don’t need to worry about setting mum straight or not. I just need to have a plentiful supply of snacks around for distraction as required 😉