Affects of surgery?

Arthritis in one shoulder was making mums life really hard, she was trying different solutions offered by the doctor and avoiding the inevitable question of surgery. Terrified of an operation she had to finally admit that it may be the only solution.

During this period we decided to move house. I had taken on a different role with my employer and my husband was looking to move to a new location with his employer. For us it meant we could be closer to my parents, something I knew we would have to think about long term, there would come a time they would need me to be closer, being an only child any help would be down to me and my husband.

Not surprisingly my parents had their usual negative responses of why, you must be mad, what for etc etc. However, we pushed on, encouraged mum to get involved, she would view properties with my husband, give us her thoughts and we hoped enjoy being part of the decision.

We eventually agreed on the right property, again our choice was seen as poor, fraught with problems, needed too much work and so it went on. We loved it, were happy it needed TLC, it had a very large garden and we could see the potential. Our house sale went through a lot quicker than expected, this left us with a dilemma, we needed to move out but had nowhere to go, finally it was agreed we could stay with mum and dad. We moved in while dad was on one of his bike trips, he got a shock when mum told him! They seemed happy enough to have us there, it was a bit tight space wise but we were ok and work started on the bungalow.

The shoulder operation was arranged, mum was very short tempered nervousness of the op making her more unreasonable about most things. Treading on egg shells for all of us, tiptoeing around her, trying to make sure she didn't over react to anything anyone said or did.

A partial shoulder replacement was performed, we set up the study with a bed, television and made it nice and cosy for her return, she was so very pleased to have come out of the operation and to be back home. There were exercises to be done which she persevered at and appeared to recover very quickly.

During the time spent with mum and dad we did see more of the memory issues surfacing. Small things, repetitive conversations again, fixations on certain tasks. One example being the request from a neighbour to look after the house while she was away. This is something mum has done for years, this time though she was constantly worrying, looking out of the window asking is it time to pull the curtains, shall I check the house, I'm worried about the bulb in the hall, I don't like leaving any keys there, I have to get the curtains open by 8am. It was driving my dad crazy, he told her it was the last time they would do it and he would let the neighbour know once they returned.

The three of us didn't speak about it, just commented on it to each other and kept telling mum to stop fussing. I think dad and I knew in our minds that things were not quite right but we were never a family to discuss issues or to talk things through. Anything to avoid talking about feelings or worries.

I had read an article in a newspaper about general anesthetic and it's potential affects on an ageing persons mental health and did it either cause dementia or speed it up if someone had the disease already. I pointed out the article to my dad who I know would have read it but still we didn't talk about it.

Link to article
Early signs

To summarise the end of 2013.
We moved in to the completed house, living just 2 miles away I like to think that mum and dad were now happy having us so close. We visited more often, I would walk the dogs to their house at the weekend so I could spend more time with them. I am lucky that I can work from home certain days of the week, they would often pop in on their way back from shopping for coffee (biscuits for dad). I really loved it, it was a very settled and happy period probably the best we had had as a family, our relationship seemed to become more relaxed.