Waiting....

 The few days with husband's bro and sil and their young grandchild went pretty well.  Unfortunately, sil received a phone call on their first day here when we were all out at lunch, giving her some distressing news, which was upsetting.  One thing I will say - although the grandchild (a 6 y.o. girl) was a perfectly nice kid, I'm quite glad we don't have hyperactive young grandchildren who seem to be constantly on the go all day long, are very bouncy and never stop talking!  (It's quite enough having husband to cope with).  They spent one day riding the steam train, just coming to us for supper later on.  And then yesterday they went to Porlock Weir, taking husband with them whilst I stayed home with Betty, who is showing signs of ageing more and more.  That meant husband had quality time with his brother, I knew he was being looked after, and I had a few hours respite at home, so good for all of us.  This morning they're leaving early for home so we said goodbye yesterday evening, after supper at their holiday place.  We shared meal hosting duties, I did no cooking, simply buying buffet type food with a few minor easy additions here.  I even bought scones rather than making them!

It's been lovely to see them and I know they've had a good time, but I do rather hope we don't have any more visitors before our holiday - I need some quiet time to get my head together.  Our next scheduled visitors will be in early November.

Last Monday we had the normal monthly phone call from husband's key worker.  To be frank, I don't really see the point of this phone call, it serves very little purpose from our point of view, even husband says so.  They say it's to support us whilst we're waiting for his appointment for the in-depth testing for dementia.  Well, it's virtually the same conversation every time - the lady, who seems perfectly nice (well, going by her voice, we've never actually met her), starts off by asking "How are you?" in a very slow and earnest manner, as if husband is already deep in the throes of dementia.  Her next question is always "And how's your memory been?" - to which husband always immediately replies "Fine!" whilst I answer "No it isn't!".  Upon which husband laughs and says "I don't know what she's talking about - who are you again?!" in his usual jokey way, which he thinks is hilarious....the key worker always chuckles politely.  Whilst I'm just silently sighing and rolling my eyes.  Two things I wasn't happy about this time - I asked about husband's brain scan results, again - last time the key worker said they'd not had them, they weren't supposed to give them out in any case but she'd try and come up with a way to give us the results, as I'd said we really want to know.  Well, she said this time they definitely won't be letting us know until we attend the testing appointment, it's their policy.  Hmmm.  And on the subject of the appointment - we were first told (by her) that there's a backlog and we won't get the appointment until December.  Now she says it'll be January!  So it almost seems like we're never going to be any nearer this further testing appointment if they keep pushing it back (and thus no nearer receiving the brain scan results, which aren't on his NHS app either, I've checked).  And in the meantime, husband's condition is slowly getting worse, by a little each week, and we're still left in total limbo.  It's no wonder I'm finding it harder and harder to cope.  It's so bloody frustrating.  They referred us to the Alzheimer's society a month ago, but they also have a backlog!