Now Mum has moved to the dementia unit at the care home, visiting has become a bit more of a gamble.  There’s a lot more activities for Mum to take part in and the team have no qualms with ‘encouraging’ visitors to get involved…

That is how a few weeks ago I became heavily involved in a game of musical bingo which had just started.  About ten residents were in a loose horse shoe shape in their armchairs, with the staff member front and centre pausing and plying clips on a CD.  I sat next to Mum who clearly had no concept what was going on but seemed to be enjoying herself;  I think the same was probably true of everyone there.  I started humming to a clip and realised it was on Mums bingo card so covered it with a chip for her.  The man to her right was having similar issues so I helped him out too.  And the lady on our left…well she was having a great time stacking counters willy nilly, so I left her to it.  I got a little more involved in the singing, but was totally outdone by the gentleman we’ll call Tommy who was singing each clip…and then as much of the rest of the song as he knew with the gusto of a West End star.

This carried on through the likes of ‘White Cliffs of Dover’, Cliff Richard and The Beatles.  A couple of times Tommy went quiet and I watched him and the ladies either side to realise that they were passing a pink slipper up and down their row.  Indeed, the lady to his left was only wearing one, but hadn’t seemed to realise the one that was being passed back every so often was the one she had lost. Up and down it went between the varying vocal arrangements and the suggestions of what the song could be.  At one point Tommy was passed the slipper, looked at it in surprise like it was the first time he’d seen it, raised each foot individually to check he wasn’t missing it, decided he wasn’t, and stuffed it behind a cushion.

The whole bingo game (38 tracks!) took most of the time I had planned to visit, but I’m not sure I’ve giggled that much visiting Mum before.  I admit I did practically hide the following week when everyone was being taken to a concert with a live singer (I got trapped in one of those Mum’s first week.  It’s an acquired taste…) Sadly, I didn’t visit on Giant Snakes and Ladders Day which looked quite fun:

Side note:  I’m writing this trying to show you the humour, because there is humour.  There has to be.  While people take great pains to tell you ‘what a horrible disease dementia is’ (absolutely) and how it is ‘cruel’ and ‘robs people of who they are’ (couldn’t agree more), I’ve not yet met someone with a relative with dementia who doesn’t laugh at it.  Because if you didn’t, you’d break with the sadness and frustration of it.  So if I sound a bit flippant, trust me; it’s how it’s done.

We weren’t finished there though.  Mum decided that she needed the toilet so I took her to her bathroom, helped her, and let one of the carers know (we found out that if Mum has a poo on your watch and you don’t tell anyone it doesn’t go in her charts and they think she is constipated and medicate for that, which obviously then has it’s own issues the next day).  ‘Lovely, said the carer.  Did you get a look?  Could you give it a number?’ And showed me this:

And once again I was reminded that there are so many things I don’t know that I don’t know.  Yet. 🫣

And on my way home I wondered what will be on musical bingo when my generation are in the homes.  Micheal Jackson, Bad ? Bon Jovi, living on a Prayer? Prince, Gett Off? The Shamen, Ebeneezer Good? Oh my God, it will be so much fun!

🙂