Margaret is not feeling good.

Just after I finished blogging on Wednesday Margaret had another "accident" which required a change of clothes and shower. I cleaned up the floor in the en-suite. On Thursday while I was out shopping she had another "accident", She managed to clean herself up but I had some floor cleaning and another nightie to wash. This is now seven"accidents" in just under two weeks. I think I should now accept that Margaret is chronically incontinent. If this is so, and it is accepted by the Australian Government's Age Care Assessment Team (ACAT) as so, it has important ramifications. Chronic Incontinence is one of the triggers for assessment as requiring continuous high care. At present Margaret is assessed as requiring continuous low care with some special needs. There are very few places in local Age Care Facilities for low care patients as they get much more money for high care patients.

There are three triggers for High Care, chronic incontinence, complete dementia and full incapacitation. Margaret has for some years had part of each but it has to be all of at least one of the triggers. While, as I stated on the first page of this blog, I do not want to place Margaret in an Aged Care Facility it is very worrying as to what would happen to Margaret in the case of me being unable to care for her. There is emergency care but do to her assessment as low care it could be anywhere with South East Queensland and up to 200 km away. Last year when I had surgery for a double hernia a place was found in a new facility 40 km away which still had low car emergency respite beds available. These beds are often booked up months in advance. While she was in the facility Margaret had a flare up of vasculitis and she was taken to the emergency department or a nearby public hospital. They had no history of Margaret's previous health so she was sent back to the home without treatment. If I can get her assessed as high care she will be able to get emergency accommodation in the local area and her GP will be on call.

As well as her "accidents" Margaret has been feeling quite ill. She has a constant headache and cramps in her legs and is also very depressed. She has gone to bed at 8.00 pm for the last two nights and has stopped reading. She was reading a lot for a couple of days with her new bright light and new glasses. Today I take her for another blood test and if she feels up to it out to lunch. We are going somewhere different this week - a local hotel. Of course we have to make sure that she goes to the loo before we go out and we also have spare incontinence pants and cleaning aids with us.

On a brighter note the swelling of her ankles has decreased significantly and I hope we can begin to reduce her diuretics in the near future.