First Signs of Trouble

First Signs of Trouble

Mum was having one of her funny five minutes.

She had had lots of them before, picking an argument when she was staying with us in London, and then escalating it before announcing she had decided to leave and was "...going back to Portsmouth." On occasion, she would get her shopping trolley, (which she used instead of a suitcase, and which was never completely unpacked from her previous visits to see us), and go stomping off down the road pulling all her worldly goods (well - not quite, obviously!) behind her.

If this happened during the daytime, she would take herself off to Victoria Coach Station, and get a coach back to Portsmouth Harbour; on arrival, she would walk a couple of miles back to her flat in Southsea.  Not too difficult a feat, you might imagine, except that at this stage, Mum was in her late seventies, usually in some pain and officially in need of a left hip replacement.

If she took it into her head to go off at night, however, that really put me in a quandary.  I used to let her get a head start, and then get in the car and catch her up. If she'd got over her "grumps," she could be persuaded to let me drive her back to the house; if not, I was then pretty well committed to taking her back to Portsmouth straight away.  I was not always amused.

On this particular occasion, she decided she could not bear to spend another moment with me in the car and demanded to be let out - otherwise she threatened to jump out of the passenger seat.

"Ma," I said, "that would be a very dangerous thing to do. Apart from hurting yourself, you could also be the cause of an accident, and hurt innocent people."

"Let me out."

"O.K. Just let me find somewhere safe to stop, and then you can get out."

Mum sat in the car, like a coiled spring, ready to leap to safety at the first opportunity.

As soon as I saw somewhere safe to stop, I did so.  I parked outside a row of terraced houses, behind a car that had a sign up with "Doctor On Call" on it.

Mum flung open the passenger door, and was out of the car like a startled gazelle, and well on the way down the road. As she did this, the Doctor had come out of the house he had  been visiting, and saw what happened.

"How long has your mother suffered from dementia?" he asked.

He didn't speak softly, and Mum heard what he said. She turned and shouted, "How dare you! I do not have dementia!" before carrying on, almost at a trot.

This was the first time I had heard the word dementia mentioned.

The Doctor shrugged, smiled and reassured me.  "Don't worry," he said. "Wait a bit and the follow her. She will probably have forgotten all about it in 10 minutes or so."

As indeed she did. I started up the engine and drove down the road.

"Shall we drive the rest of the way home?" I asked.

"Oh, that's a good idea!"said Mum. "It will be easier on my leg."

It seemed she had got the aggravation out of her system, and the rest of the day was good.