End of the hospital vigil

The period of daily hospital visits is now at an end.  My mother moves into a residential care home tomorrow.  It has been six weeks.  Mum—who featured in illustrations in Relaxing into Meditation—is not overjoyed at the prospect of residential care but does recognise that she cannot live alone in her own home any more without considerable support.  Of the options available to her, residential care is the lesser of two evils for her – she really hated carers coming into her home several times a day and this would have had to happen four times a day from here on.  Residential care may actually be cheaper as well.

She is moving into Cathedral View Resdidential Care Home which is just up the road from her house.  Mum felt it would be nice to continue to live in the area she knows and she is lucky that there is a space at the home.  It is a great relief for me to know that she will be in residential care.  I will no longer feel on call all the time and have that little surge of worry whenever the phone rings in the evening; I will have more time and will not feel the responsibility of being my mother's primary source of companionship; and I will know that she is safe.  It will be great to visit her just as her daughter wanting to enjoy her company, rather than as a carer running around trying to sort things out for her.  The home is near a park and the Taff trail, and I am looking forward to trundling her over to see the river.  If the weather is fine we can even have a picnic – we haven't managed anything relaxing like that together this year as it has been dominated by her injuries and hospital visits.

All the wards at the University Hospital of Wales have these curtains showing scenes from Cardiff and the Vale.  They are nice curtains and a useful talking point sometimes – but I am hoping that I will not be seeing them again for a while.