Post #156 - Dealing With Disability In The Family

Mr Logic's younger brother, Uncle Logic, was born with significant physical and mental disabilities in the early 1960s - he attended a special school until the age of eighteen and then spent the time until his mid fifties in the care of my late father-in-law and mother-in-law, both of whom completely ignored his needs.  My father-in-law, whom I never met, died in the mid-1990s and my mother-in-law (Nanny Logic) cared for Uncle Logic until she fell and broke her tibia back in 2012 and never walked again, making outside intervention the only pathway.  She was, however, in her late eighties then and far too elderly to cope.

Uncle Logic always had health issues, but these were ignored for years because Nanny Logic didn't have the mental capacity and ability to understand her adult son's needs.  When I married into the family during the early 2000s I tried to make a difference, but unless she, as his main carer, was deliberately mistreating him, there was very little me and Mr Logic could do - for example, Uncle Logic once developed Bell's Palsy, which could have blinded him in one eye and it was only picked up by us when we visited one weekend.  Mr Logic took him to Moorfields Eye Hospital to ensure the condition was properly treated (with medical Botox if you're interested!)

Nanny Logic developed vascular dementia and after many years of wrangling with the social services, care agencies and all that jazz, she was placed in a local authority home which she died in at the age of ninety-one.  Vascular Dementia is a horrid condition - it slowly kills you over a four year period.  Uncle Logic was housed in a sheltered house for gentlemen with learning and physical disabilities and, a few years on, he's still there.  He has been hospitalised a few times along the way and was even in Intensive Care at various points.  There have been a few issues recently, which I won't go into here because they're on way to being solved and we really appreciate how hard the staff work in the home.

Post #17 - Hospitalised Relatives and A Missing Cat

I won't got into great detail about the background of my family situation, but in a nutshell, my husband has a 90-year-old mother with Vascular Dementia who is now in a residential home and a mentally and physically disabled brother who is in sheltered accommodation.  I explain much more in another of my blogs, Caring For The Carers: https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=744390122599049054#overview/src=dashboard

On Monday afternoon my husband received a call from one of the carers in my brother-in-law's (BIL)'s sheltered accommodation stating that the latter had experienced difficulty breathing and had been taken to A&E at a north London hospital.  He was later admitted; hubby went to see him on Tuesday and my BIL was hooked up to masks, tubes and all sorts - he seemed quite sick.  The Doctor stated that he had fluid in his lungs and his scolosis was making it difficult for his lungs to operate effectively. 

This morning my MIL's care home rang hubby to state that she wasn't well, was refusing to leave her room and becoming more aggressive and at other times, tearful.  We agreed to write a detailed account of her medical history to date, like we did with my BIL.

To top it all, my youngish black and white cat Sophie's gone missing.  I've long wondered whether she was getting her Felix elsewhere, but we haven't seen her since we put her out last night.  Apparently the insurance states that you have to contact the Vet within five days of disappearance.  She's chipped and was vaccinated recently.  Pah!