Dear Diary - A Care Giver in England.

17th June, 2011.
Every morning at 6.40am my alarm goes off and I feel like a mole. I batter around blindly as I clamber out of bed, pulling on clothes willy-nilly then making my way to the kitchen to get Molly’s tray ready for her 8am tea in bed.
I’m tired, very tired. There is no sleep for the wicked in this house.
That done, there is a reprieve until the 10am tray with breakfast, the cutlery and starched napkin arranged “just so” is to be delivered with a sunny smile and the newspaper.
I go and scratch a comb through my hair, wash my face with cold water to wake up and avoid looking at myself in the mirror for fear the image looking back at me is the fiend I was branded yesterday when Molly accused me of re-arranging her crystal and cut glass collection on the kitchen dresser.
I assured her that I hadn’t touched it, (I knew not to touch or move anything in the house from reading previous Carer’s notes, or risk facing the dark side of Molly’s wrath!)
“The cleaner was here yesterday Molly, maybe she moved things when dusting?”
“Don’t be stupid, I’ve known her for years, she is a good Christian woman and she would not move anything,” Barked Molly irritably.
I said nothing, but thought to myself, “She may be a good Christian, but even bloody Christian’s have to move stuff to dust, - unless they were fortunate enough to be Jesus and could perform a miracle!”
Molly continued; “Now how am I to believe anything you say from now on? When I know it was you. Put everything back where you found it!”
Confused, I ask her to tell me where she would like each piece of glass placed.
She tells me and I do as I’m bid, all the time bristling and visualising the glass in shards, (it made me feel better.)
She had it in for me, for the rest of the day, she found fault with what ever I did or said, making insinuating caustic remarks at my expense continuously.
I eventually did a “Carer’s disappearing act” and fled to my bolt-hole, the designated Carer’s car that I had been entrusted to drive Molly to and from her various appointments.
This is one place she cannot get to easily as it’s parked outside and she has to be assisted to her walker to get to it.
Without me there to do that, she is obliged to stay indoors with her inside Zimmer-frame.
Ah, 10 minutes, that’s all I need, 10 minutes to “gird my loins” and return to the fracas!
I’ll have been here a week tomorrow and I have to say that Molly is generally in good spirits and really quite a nice Golden-Oldie, but every now and again her doppelganger takes over and she becomes and entirely different person, someone you do not want to meet when walking out on the dark side of the street.
That night as I helped Molly get ready for bed, her head popped out of her night-dress and she said,
“Susan, before I forget, you are not to move anything on my table”
“Which table?” I ask, mystified
“You jolly well know the one you took my plasters from. The plasters you threw away!”
“Pardon? Why would I do that?”
“I have no idea, you tell me,” growled Molly now sweetly tucked up in bed by me.
“OK Molly, I guess I will,” I said calmly as I strode from the bed to her dressing table where she had placed the plasters the day before, picked them up and brandished them in the air triumphantly,
“I presume I am a crack hoop-thrower and I must have thrown them right here”
No answer…
Good!
Turning on her night-light, I bade her good-night; it was 1am and time for me to fall into bed.

Should you like to get my Blog directly into your email box, enter you email address in the top right hand box.