I often read the blog of a caregiver who not only visits his wife every day, but also goes back to “tuck her in” about four or five times a week. I thought how nice that must be, and how much it normalises the relationship, much more so than just doing the day visits.
But I also recognised that I am not so selfless. When I leave to come home each day, I just want to get inside my home and not go out again, and a return to the nursing home is something I just do not want to do. So I did a bit of the guilt trip thing but decided that I can only do what I can do.
But last Saturday I decided that I would go back, after all. There is a TV programme Don enjoys at 7.30 pm on Saturday evenings, “Doc Martin”, and he had never watched them except when he came home for the day and watched an episode that I had taped. It seems he would either forget, or else not get the right channel. So I thought, I will go back and sit with him, and we will watch it together, and won’t that be cosy.
I didn’t wait till the deathknock of 7.30 to get there – thought it would be a bit rude to just arrive, watch the show, and then leave – so I arrived about 6.30, to find him sound asleep. I woke him up to tell him I was there (people are very polite and don’t wake him up when they come to visit, but he sleeps quite a lot and prefers to be woken if there are visitors) and tried to keep him awake until 7.30, without much success. He would wake up and mumble a few comments in a dreamlike state, but when I said, Would you like me to leave now? he mumbled, No, let’s watch Doc Martin together, I want to see Doc Martin for once. And then shut his eyes.
By 7.30 when the show started he was completely, unquestionably, sound asleep. I bent down close to his ear and said I was going, but it didn’t even register.
I’m very glad I tried, though. I now just do as much as I think I can do, without the guilt of thinking perhaps I should be doing more.
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