or just another train coming?

My boss let me take some lieu time this afternoon so I could go home and rest. I was falling asleep in a post-lunch meeting and couldn't read the notes I'd scribbled semi-conscious. I managed about 90 minutes sleep before having to get ready to go to the hospital. Another lovely, hand-holding, smiley, mother/daughter bonding visit. Why couldn't we have been like this in all the years before? Our lives would have been so different if we'd been this close. Ah well, better late than never.

That was the good news. The bad news is that mum still isn't eating and only drinking enough to get her tablets down. She has lost weight since her last hospital stay a week ago and is now only 5 st 5 lb (75 pounds). The nurse said that if she doesn't start eating soon, they'll have to use a gastric tube, poor mum. I reminded her constantly throughout the visit that she would have to stay in hospital until she was eating properly - they wouldn't send her home to starve to death. Even so, I couldn't get her to drink anything (I think she's frightened of accidents - she was in another change of nightwear today) but she did have 2 maltesers :-)

The nurse said she seemed confused and that before dementia sets in, people often suffer from depression because they sense something is wrong but don't know what. That would certainly fit my mum's presentation over the last few years. What is going to happen? Will she pick up and start eating so she can go home? Will she be kept alive by tube? Will she fade away?

After the hospital I went round to my cousin's, its his 50th birthday today. He and his wife are two of my most favourite people, they really are 'extended family'. My cousin went through very similar stress with his parents, in fact his dad (my mother's brother) was behaving just like mum towards the end - repeated telephone calls, confusion, paranoia, general bolshiness! MC is going to be a great source of comfort and advice as I try to cope with mumgate.