CONFUSION

Mum and I had only one more hospital to visit but now it's two as I've decided to split the tests.
The two at Monash Clayton are going to take 3 hours and that's as much as she can take at the moment. So X-ray and blood tests will be at Moorabbin which is closer and where the op will take place.

I spent the day going over everything we did yesterday. She remembers some of it but there's a point where exhaustion just takes over.

My Mother has enormous willpower to survive. What she is terrified of is losing her ability to think and be in control of her life. Finally she has talked about this but it's not something we can be truthful about. My sister has been a geriatric nurse for nearly 30 years and has noticed Mum's increasing, but not major, confusion over the last 12 months. The same routine followed every day, with the craft market once a month has kept her focused and on track.

It's not lack of concentration, it's an organic degeneration caused by the huge amount of medication she takes and a decrease of oxygen to the brain simply because she can't move around much. That's why it's been so noticable in the past two weeks of going to different hospitals. She becomes unfocused and disorientated which disappears the minute we're back in the house in familiar surroundings.

I can understand this fear. I think it's something that lurks in the back of everyone's mind, that we might lose our independence completely. I'll spend the next fortnight with her, just tidying her sewing things away ready for when she wants to start again although she'll never go back to the craft market. I found a beautiful piece of red wool today that she had forgotten so when I left she was deciding whether to make a dress or a suit. This is how we're going to keep her mind in good condition, now and after the 4th of May.