A Quiet Few Days

Since I blogged Tuesday things have been fairly quite. This doesn't mean that Margaret hasn't had her moments but generally she has been in a nice mood.

After I blogged Margaret had a minor stumble against her wheely walker. She just touched her arm against its handle and ended up with a a skin tear about an inch square. I have equipped myself with a comprehensive first aid kit which contains some dressings recommended by the Blue Care RN call Mediplex. I swabbed down Margaret's arm with an antiseptic swab and applied one of these dressings. They are supposed to remain on for four or five days providing there in no sign of infection. Margaret has had very itchy skin recently, another by product of renal failure, and in a couple of days (last Friday) she had scratched off the dressing. The tear was not infected so I put on another one. This morning she has successfully scratched off the second one. Again there is no sign of infection so this time I applied an Opsite dressing which are difficult to scratch off. I will try and get her to see her GP on Monday or Tuesday to see if more needs to be done.

Margaret continues to have confused moments and once she called me for help from her en suite bathroom and, once again, she was just sitting there trying to put on a kitchen bin bag over her incontinence pants. I had some difficulty explaining that the bag was to contain the soiled pants not to wear. This is happening quite regularly and she,literally, doesn't know what day of the week it is.

I signed off last Tuesday wondering how Margaret would get on with the Blue Care carer while I took four hours respite at my computer club meeting. I needn't have worried the carer was T who came last time. She is a dog lover and owns four herself ranging from a Bull Mastiff cross down to a Pug cross so Louis fits nicely into her range. I keep Louis in his lead until he settles and then he just wanders between T, who has a nice relaxing afternoon, and Margaret, T said later that it was obvious that Margaret had a love me, love my dog attitude and had made a note that future carers must be able to cope with Louis.

I had a relaxing three hours at the meeting catching up with old friends and have arranged to give a couple of talks over the next few months if Margaret remains stable. To this end I have been developing a series of tutorials to be present using a Wiki style interface. The idea is that members will be able copy the Wiki to a USB Memory stick and have several tutorials which they can view at home using their browser. This has kept me occupied when not looking after Margaret or the house.

One depressing thing this week has been Margaret's continuing withdrawal from life. She rarely leaves her bedroom and didn't want to go out to lunch on Friday. In the evenings she normally goes to bed at about 8.30 pm. I have, therefor some hours to fill.

Another unrelated tragedy this week has been the death of of my morning dog walking friend's dog Jack. Jack was just under five years old and very special to J. He was just a year old when J's husband died and Jack helped her through a distressing time. We walked together most mornings for an hour and discussed our mutual problems and enjoyed our dogs company. Jack suddenly stopped eating about three weeks ago and in spite of Vet's treating him he was too weak to walk on Monday and died Friday. I shall miss him and hope that J gets herself another dog.

Jack