It's Mum's birthday.

Her third at Comfort. My sister and I arrive together, our arms full of agapanthus blooms, chocolate cake, cards and some new clothes I've wrapped in a parcel.

We find the staff poised to start a party for Mum in the lounge, which we didn't know about, but we have a meeting with the nurse and in the confusion the party is put on hold and two carers walk Mum to her room. We sit with her and open her cards, my sister holding them up to try and catch her eye. The nurse is now delayed, so an attempt is made to encourage Mum back to the lounge. Tired and fed up with the to-ing and fro-ing, Mum is resistant and our progress is slow. Dominique, Mum's 1:1 carer, pulls Mum by the hands towards an armchair.

There is a huge lemon cake covered in cream on a side table and there are small plates and cone-shaped party hats with elastic under the chin which the carers are pushing into our hands and snapping onto the heads of the residents. It’s noisy, with the TV on, staff singing 'Happy Birthday' and tinny, trebly music blasting from an iPad, and the residents, who have been gathered and waiting for some time, are impatient. Wilhelmina erupts with a long diatribe against Mum, calling her a 'f***ing bloodclart’, while Arthur shouts ‘f***ing get on with it!' at the top of his voice, both of which send my sister into helpless, stressed giggles. Mum finally sits in the chair under swathes of birthday bunting and we are told to stand either side of her for a photo, masked, hatted and blinking, while our own cake is wheeled to a stop in front of us.

I crouch down to feed Mum a few mouthfuls of the rich, sticky chocolate. Someone asks me what music she likes and finds the Beatles on YouTube and leaves the iPad beside us. They are making so much effort. It’s hot and we are sweating and flustered, watched by the room as we eat platefuls of cake, and Mum sits there in the middle of it all, withdrawn, miserable, assaulted by noise and over-stimulation.

'We are moving towards person-centred care', we are told later, in the meeting.

#alzheimers #carehome #dementiacare #motherdaughter