Chucking the carers out

Dad's getting paranoid.  The beefed up care plan was agreed, but of course he's forgotten that.   So now he has extra people coming to see him and he doesn't know who they are.  Nice people, trained in caring, able to win the trust of older people, that's hopefully why they're in this line of work... it couldn't be that it was this or bust, turn this one down and we stop your benefits, sunshine, could it?

Well, in the case of Edgar, you have to wonder.  I thought at first it was a shrewd move on the part of the agency to involve an older man in the care team, someone closer to Dad in both age and gender who would find it easy to establish rapport.  But what gave Edgar an advantage through being male and old, he forfeited by being, it would seem, unsuited for his job.  He sounds, piecing together the accounts of both the cleaner and neighbour, like a grumpy old beggar with no real empathy and lacking basic people skills... even known to eff and blind in Dad's hearing.  I can cope with fruity language, have been known to use it myself, anything but conform to the stereotype of the pious vicar whose eyebrows twitch at the slightest deviation from BBC newsreader English, but Dad wouldn't like it - he's more pious in that regard than me.  Or just more conventional.  Anyway, for whatever reason, Dad has now taken against Edgar and won't let him in the house.  From what I hear, I'm not sure I'd want Edgar in mine.

But think of the double precedent that sets.  First, Dad has formed a dislike of a male person with responsibility for his care.  So, males responsible for his care are people he can permit himself to dislike; but given his mental infirmity, that begins to colour his perception and memories of other male care figures who have been kind to him, with whom he has got on well.  He now recalls them through the lens of his encounters with Edgar: "oh I didn't like that doctor very much" he has said of one particular consultant.  Bollocks, Dad (he wouldn't use that word either): you got on with him fine, but you're hearing "male doctor" and remembering Edgar.

Second, if it's OK to chuck male carers out of the house, who's to say it's not OK to chuck out female ones?  and that's started to happen, as of today (October 25)  He's refused entry to lovely little Yvonne, had her in tears even.  Why?  Well, because Yvonne had said that she was coming instead of Zoe, had taken over from her and he wasn't having that.  It wasn't true, of course but Dad is - as I'm sure I shall keep saying - making up reality as he goes along.  What's become different quite recently is that it's a reality that makes him wary and suspicious, drawing on a side of his character that's always been on the lookout for con artists and cowboys.  He's not in a good place right now.

Dad has needs he's not aware of.  He doesn't wash properly, gets his clean and mucky clothes mixed up, isn't eating anything like a balanced diet ... he has his pride and won't be told, which is understandable, but even if he admits his carers it's not going to do much good if he won't let them do any caring.  I'm glad that daily contact is being made, but the plan needs to have a bit more oomph if it's going to work.