Hello again from the UK…I hear those of you in Oklahoma are being pounded by a nasty winter storm. I am not sorry to miss that, although as I write, it is 5a.m. here, I am in bed, feet on a hot water bottle and my nose is as cold as a Labrador’s.
I want to say a quick thank you to those of you who have taken a moment to drop me a line. It is more comforting than you know, when you realize that someone is thinking about you at a time like this. I have such a wonderful group of sisters in the USA – my heartfelt gratitude travels across the Atlantic to you all.
While she was in the hospital, the Duchess managed to lose her bottom set of false teeth. Poor old mum had suffered with rickets (a malnutrition disease) when she was a child during world war two. Consequently, by the time she was in her thirties and had delivered four healthy children, she had to have false teeth. The Duchess rocked them…no whistling, no scary stuff, you never saw her with them out, except while in the hospital. For as we sat crowded around her bed one morning, she announced to the room that her bottom set of teeth had indeed gone AWOL.
The denture hunt was on, like ivory hunters in the Congo, our search party began. Me, my sister Denny and my aunt Bet were on the case. I speculated they were swaddled in a Kleenex somewhere, as were many things lately in mum’s possession. One side effect of her Alzheimer’s was her incessant desire to be a squirrel. Things were wrapped secretively in Kleenex’s and hidden in various places about her person, bed locker, or handbag. My niece Danii arrived, and we debated that the gnashers might have even landed on her dinner plate, and that some poor, unsuspecting kitchen worker could lift the plate cover of mum’s uneaten meal and find a bottom set smiling up at them. Wise Auntie Bet decided that they were definitely under the bed…weren’t all teeth kept there? So convinced was my aunt, she quickly dropped to the ground to see if they were lurking under there with the dustballs, and then lost her balance and promptly fell over and ended up laying on the floor.
A nurse rushed over, “Is she alright? “Oh yes,” I replied, “She was just looking for teeth.”
At last they were discovered rolled up in a kleenex, swaddled in the fold of the blanket on mum’s bed. They were quickly reunited with their partner, and we were back in business. The next two mornings brought more of the same, the clever teeth found other hiding spots to ‘chew’ on, but the crack-team always found the little buggers.
Then it was time for the Duchess to come home! This news was not met with pleasure by mum. She was really enjoying the companionship of her room-mates, and the steady stream of well-wishers, family and tooth hunters. She was not pleased, but once she saw the two burly men who were going to bring her home in an ambulance, she went with them uncaring of her destination. We went on ahead, while the sounds of her flirting followed us down the corridor.
I hate Alzheimer’s. It has stolen the person that used to live inside my mother’s body, yet cruelly allows me glimpses of what I am missing of the women I have known my entire life. The disease takes the light from her eyes, makes her forget her own history, the fifty-one year long love-affair she shared with my now deceased father, and that her favourite colour has always been purple, the colour of Kings. But now, for this moment in time, that terrible disease has become my ally. Because through all the confusion of being ill, being weak, my mum has forgotten that she has cancer. It is the elephant in the room. It is the very thing we do not talk about.
I spend a great deal of time with her. I am lucky, I have been given the opportunity by my employers, who understand the importance of family, and the blessing of the Gumpster, who is on the other side of the ocean taking care of Stinky Sam, and probably enjoying some respite from his hormonal time-bomb wife. This is time I will treasure for the rest of my life.
Mum has a partner, most of you know this, but for the sake of the blog I will call him Elvis. A 77 year old Elvis…..you get the picture. Elvis is the kind of guy that you never want your daughter to bring home, the kind of guy that you see on bad television reality shows and on the ‘people you see at Walmart’ emails. He is the complete and utter opposite of my darling father, he is the anti-dad, and the Duchess is inexplicably and hopelessly in love with him. Perhaps the onset of Alzheimer’s has moulded this relationship, with its dependency and need for security? Who knows, but like it or not, the Duchess is mad about the boy, Prince Elvis.
I could write many things at this point, get a lot of laughs from the readers, shock and appall you all. But it would serve no purpose, so I will just keep him in the story, and let you build your own image of who he is. But for now the Duchess is home, back in her 600 square-foot castle. Her little bony body looks like it should belong to someone else, she looks like she has been on a hunger strike. Mum has handled radiotherapy like a trooper although she can’t remember having it – they have told us that she will have no more treatment, and that the plan is to give her quality of life and keep her happy. This is no hard task, as all mum really wants is company. For me and my siblings that part is a piece of cake, hanging with the Prince however, ain’t. If you were to look up the word ‘inappropriate’ in the dictionary, you would find a picture of the Prince.
The first evening mum was home went smoothly. I left and then called the next morning, only to be told by the Prince that mum was completely worn out. I personally wasn’t entirely sure if it was the physical exertion from the actual trip home from the hospital, or perhaps just the exertion from flirting with the ambulance boys. So I hastened out into the cold morning, rushed to the bus stop, sat next to a few undesirables, and reached the village of Wimborne over an hour later. I quickly walked to mum’s flat, let myself in through the tradesman’s entrance (it really is called that and it isn’t Downton Abbey) rushed up the stairs and rang the doorbell. The Prince came the door, and as my eyes adjusted to the unbuttoned shirt, various gold chains around his neck, I stepped into the hall and asked him how my mum was doing.
“She’s alright,” he replied, “but she’s lost her teeth.”