Snowflakes

This afternoon Dr P was transferred from the hospital to the nursing home which had the respite care vacancy. I went over earlier and did all the paperwork. He arrived later than expected, as the hospital sent him across to the major hospital for various tests, and it seems they are twiddling with his medicines. He was quite cheerful, and lucid when he arrived, despite a long and complicated day.

He has his own room, and his own air conditioner, and he has a nice window, and has two chairs in the room. He does not have his own bathroom, but it is just across the hall, and as he needs help to get there, it does not matter. The staff seem good, kind, cheerful and pro-active, and they brought me a pot of tea while I waited for Dr P to arrive. I hope these first good impressions are the real thing. The Nursing Director and I bonded over our divorce experiences!

Vixen went there yesterday, whether to inspect or to assert an essential role for herself I do not know, and thought it politic not to press for information. She  appears not to have impressed the staff at the other hospital.  Probably she never went to charm school. But on reflection, neither did I! Nature, not nurture?

I have been very sad and miserable for the last few days, adjusting to being alone in the house, and occupying myself by tidying up shelves and cupboards, cleaning out the genuine antique collection of medicines, and sorting out Dr P's clothes, deciding what he needs in the nursing home. It felt as though I was cleaning out and disposing of the possessions of someone who had died. It was awful, and I wept all over all sorts of things as I worked. Such work helps with all the mixed and conflicting emotions.

Friends have been very good, now that I have managed to talk to my friends instead of dealing principally with the stepdaughters. Word has spread to various of Dr P's former colleagues, who live in other states, and they have telephoned and been terrific. Other friends visited him yesterday. He  has always enjoyed their company, and they told me they stayed for 45 minutes and he talked and talked and was really lucid and on the ball.  What really helps is people having real conversations with him: then his mind snaps back into focus and he engages with the people and the topics of conversation. Let us hope he gets many such visitors.

Now that he is in respite care I can check other nursing homes and try to work out what offers best care, and compare costs.

As to costs....

Dr P's solicitor rang me yesterday morning with the news that the stepdaughters have agreed to  return the purloined money to a trust fund with the solicitor, which will pay for any accommodation bond. I wish I had been privy to those conversations and communications, as it seems likely that they may have been made to feel the impropriety and greed of their actions in getting Dr P to write those cheques. I was  most explicit in expressing my views to him. I was told that Dt P had expressed the intention of giving money to the others to balance the loan he gave to the youngest. But the point is, he never did so while he had the capacity, and they used his mental incapacity, feebleness, and desire to be loved (for what he gave rather than for what he is) to get that money.  Corruption, greed, rapaciousness, exploitation and deception.

I feel a fierce joy and sense of vindication, but absolutely no gratitude or thankfulness. I am as angry with them as ever, as the very idea of exploiting an 87 year old man not in possession of his faculties, and declining visibly day by day, fills me with rage and horror.

And my rage, determination, care and love have forged in me a steely ability to make decisions, protect myself and Dr P, and to work in ways which have achieved what should not have had to be an issue. They have seen my mettle.

I owe a great deal to my wonderful brother in law, my solicitor, who has acted on my behalf (and of course for Dr P's benefit too) with his wonderful legal ability, strategic ability, firmness of purpose and focus on results. I did not expect this result. I take some credit for it, in being able to express my outrage to Dr P's solicitor. He expressed no opinions, but he must have shared some at least of my views to have been able to reach this result. And I have an undertaking that nothing will be done by them without my consent. I think they have had the fear of God put into them. So to speak.

It seems that on rare occasions snowflakes can indeed survive in hell.