Round up of 2024

What a year it's been here at Crazy Towers I've achieved the square root nothing, I didn't even have the time to get down to our allotment to prepare the beds and plant all my seedlings so no home grown vegetables this year, to add insult to injury the birds stripped the plum and cherry trees bare of fruit so we had none of those either, the only thing l did succeed in growing were some spectacularly tall weeds

Image Descriptions - Head shot of Eko the Golden Cocker Spaniel and Boris the Black Cocker Spaniel sitting outside in our garden, both are wearing red Santa hats tipped at a jaunty angle looking and the still with a white pop tipped forward between their eyes too o look adorably cute

Thankfully I was given a pass for this years allotment inspection, but if I don't plant it up next year I could potentially lose it to the next person on the waiting list, I'd be gutted if that happened as I love my allotment garden

🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾

In April dad had a nasty fall and broke his hip which resulted in a 14 week hospital stay, those 14 weeks put a dreadful strain on me as not only was I visiting mum every day to make sure she was ok on her own and to ensure she was eating and taking her medication, but I was visiting dad every day in hospital too, both in totally opposite directions from my house

Dad went downhill so quickly and soon became really unwell with aspirational pneumonia, I really thought we were going to lose him and I called my brother over from France just in case

But dad's a fighter and after 8 long  weeks he was eventually well enough to be moved to a more local cottage hospital, but the problem being that dad was so frail by now and had lost most of his mobility, plus his alzheimer's started to progress at an alarming rate 

I had more meetings than I can remember with social services  about how we were going to get dad back home again and about sorting out the Power of Attorney. Thankfully mum and dad had already put the POA's into place for both of them in 2015, I just had to find my paperwork so that they could be activated which was pretty straight forward, although I did have to pay nearly £300 to get office copies due to the solicitor they were registered with being in prison so the originals were unavailable 

Dad was finally allowed to go home and my parents now have a live-in carer, but it didn't work out very well to start with due to a very real communication barrier with dad's stammer as English wasn't the carers first language, it was a very stressful time and I was literally having to micro manage every single thing to ensure it got done 

Things came to a head when she had a weekend off and we had a temporary live in and found out that dad hadn't been recieving his eye drops for his glaucoma since he'd been home as the seal on the bottle from the hospital was still intact, yet they were being signed off as done each day

Plus so much wasn't in place for looking after dad that should have been that nobody had told me about and the carer never even said about it in the couple of weeks she'd been there so I didn't know

That weekend the temporary carer helped me get everything in place to make life better for dad and I was sad to see her go when her placement was up

I emailed the care company about my concerns and within the week the lady who was the temporary weekend carer swapped places with the first carere

Long story short we now have a wonderful live-in carer who is so organised and is brilliant with both mum and dad, I still run around like a headless chicken some days due to many hospital appointments my parents need, but at least I'm not constantly worrying about what happening at my parents house when I'm not there

🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾

It's so good to be out and about walking the boys together on the common again, whilst Eko was so unwell his walks were kept to a bare minimum as he became so frail and disinterested in everything

He's still a lot thinner than I'd like but Eko's most definitely back to his crazy bouncy self once again and Boris is so happy to have his playmate back to race around with

Image Description - Eko the Golden Cocker Spaniel and Boris the Black Cocker Spaniel standing amongst the roots between two trees out on the common, I'm standing a little further down the bank to take the photo which makes for an interesting angle as the camera looks up at them. Both are wearing their green fleece jumpers and flashing collars ready for when it gets darker and are look intently in my direction

I don't usually put a fleece on Eko until the weather gets a lot colder but with him being so very thin at the moment I think it's wise to keep him as warm as possible whilst out on walks, the wind was especially bitter yesterday, I even had to go back inside to put a warmer coat on before we set off

🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾

Unfortunately we still have no conclusive answers as to why Eko was so gravely unwell but I'm not taking any chances, in the past few months Eko has developed a real passion for chewing and occasionally eating tree branches when we're out on walks, whether it's connected to his health problems or not I've no idea

But erring on the side of caution, I now remove any branches from Eko's possession, on both occasions when Eko suddenly became so violently unwell there were signs of chewed up wood leaving him from both ends

Eko is currently on a very strict low fat, bland and very boring diet for a month before we start reintroducing novel proteins back into his diet once more and chewed up stick is most definitely off the menu

Eko is doing much better now and has even put a few ounces back on, it's not much but at least he seems to have finally stopped losing weight

🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾

Around mid November mum was acting very strangely when I arrived at my parents house to take dad to an appointment, she seemed even more confused than usual with her dementia and couldn't seem to coordinate properly when walking back to her room, an ambulance was called as it looked to me like mum might be having some kind of stroke

The ambulance were there within minutes and mum seemed ok when they arrived although she wasn't being very talkative or cooperative and was very slow to answer questions

All the checks were done for a stroke and thankfully she wasn't having one, but it's suspected she had a TIA which is a kind of mini stroke and I took her to see her own GP later that afternoon, by which time mum was back to normal again was referred to the TIA Clinic at Frimley 

Poor dad had to miss his appointment and was very distressed with what was happening, even though I explained to him what was going on his alzheimer's just wouldn't allow him to remember, in the end I distracted him by making him a cup of tea and putting the TV on so that he couldn't hear what was going on in mums room and he soon started to settle down

🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾

Unfortunately Boris has had a bit of an upset tummy for the past couple of days, although I'm not too worried just yet as I suspect it's been caused by the large amount of treats he stole when he discovered his and Eko's Christmas presents which I'd stashed at my parents house to avoid Eko discovering them at home

Stealing is very out of character for Boris, although I have started to notice him acting slightly differently recently, I suspect his age might be starting to catch up with him

Ten isn't particularly old for a dog of Boris's size, but having early onset arthritis and then discovering he has a severe heart murmur and Staph Pseudintermedius a couple of years ago may well have sped up the aging process, especially as there have been other character changes we've noticed recently

Last week the weather was glorious with hard frosts and lots of cold but glorious sunshine, this week has been wet and miserable so it looks like it'll be a damp Christmas for us here in the UK, but we'll make the best of it like we always do

Things can only get better next year, can't they?

**all fingers and paws crossed**

Wishing all our friends and followers a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

Dawn, Boris & Eko xxx  

This Post is linked too

The cat on my head - Sunday Selfies #540

 

Get new posts by email: