The Great Dental Escape

[DTCwordfan]

Oh what fun and games we have had this afternoon. I know that we don't like going to the dentist. However!

Picture a nice lunch with my mother and sister, Lady J knows the place, the Lemon Tree in Truro, a walk then via a couple of shops for potential birthday gifts and over to the main street through 'Squeezeguts Alley' - I jest not.

My sister left us there to head off to the White Co and we went to the dentist in another cut-through.

Upstairs, the mater wanted the loo, on the outside of the suite, so I went into register her. The next thing is was that she hadn't appeared - no sign of her in the window, though that isn't large.

It's the Great Dental Escape time.

I end up going outside and a scour around, no luck, back to the office. Then a guy who was accompanying his wife, who had recently been mugged volunteered to help me, one of the nurses looking after her.

No luck, two big sweeps achieved, basically in the shape of a pumping heart.

Back to the office, the police called, and the search begins. 40 officers notified, CCTV cameras to be looked at, buses and taxi drivers put on alert. I went over to Tescos and alerted them, that being one of the potential base camps that she may have struck out for.

Back to the dental office, an officer there, and after more details, it's agreed that I should check the two possible main routes back to the house. Up the more walkable one, one walker and car stopped, no sightings up there. Out onto the main road, Janine will know the steepness of Kenwyn Hill to go out to the Perranporth turn on the A30 halfway between Chiverton and Carland Crosses, onto the first of the local lanes and there she is, 2.8 miles and the hill covered in the hour at aged nigh on 81.

At least she is safe. Talk about the bitching and moaning that she isn't allowed to walk anywhere, clueless that she didn't come from the house, the police thinking she is bonkers, which is close to the truth - we dropped in there to go back to Tescos.....

However it shows you what they can do when the Alzheimer's deep side of the mind kicks in.......

Any stories on your parts as to serious or even the funny ones of such 'walkies'.......?

[DTCwordfan]

And, yes, I need a drink, though a tea will suffice for now.

[Hopkirk]

My Nan had senile dementia, though I don't think it was Alzheimers.

She complained bitterly once that the hairdressers was shut when she turned up for her 4 o'clock appointment. The trouble was she went there at 4 am not 4 pm.

[DTCwordfan]

Oh dear, had a little of that but mainly in the house....

[Hopkirk]

She was living alone and spread out all her photos on her bed to sort them, but then took to sleeping in an easy chair because of the photos.

Apparently this could have increased her confusion as lying down improves blood flow to the brain at night.

[DTCwordfan]

that's one of the reasons that they give them the brain medication, Aricept and its derivatives, at night. Whether that works to help retard the deterioration, who knows, but not exactly easy to stop it and see and then go back on!

[chrissa1]

What a fright you must have had, DTC.

[DTCwordfan]

It's not to much a fright as a panic, Chrissa, if that makes sense.

[Psybbo]

Wow, what an afternoon you've had! I'm just glad you caught up with her.
Mine now forgets what clothes she has and insists I brought them in and didn't tell her! Oh, and if she can't find something, I must have taken it.

[wendilla]

Glad she is safe . I know the hill at perrinporth well climbed it a few times up to the caravan site .

[pixie373]

Aricept is brilliant, imo, dt, noticeable difference.

One of the best escapes we had from the home was a 90 year old lady climbing out her bedroom window, pulling a dining room chair through and climbing over a 6 foot fence. She then walked round and came back in the front door.

[237SJ]

Yes. I was driving back from Barnstaple to our village at about 1am. The village is a mile up a dark country road from the main road. When I got to the top (edge of the village) I was flagged down by an elderly lady who was fully dressed but in her slippers and waving an umbrella around. I stopped. She said she "had left them all at home" I asked who "them" was but got a confused answer. I told her that there were no buses at this time of night (I think in her mind she might have been heading too to the bus stop on the main road) I suggested that she might like to get in my car and we would drive around the village and see if she recognised her home. We did and she didn`t. I drove to my parents` house and I parked close to the wall so that she couldn`t get out and told her to stay where she was "OK Dear, she said (they are so trusting aren`t they)? I phoned the police. I was put through to Exeter (50 miles away) so they said they would send some coppers down to open up the local nick. I took her there. They tried to get information out of her but I told them not to waste their time as I had tried and got nowhere. I had to drive back to London a few hours later and go straight to work so I didn`t hear immediately but apparently, the lady lived with her family and they didn`t know she was missing until 8.30 that morning when they took a cup of tea into her room and she wasn`t there. Apparently, the cops had taken her to the local hospital because they didn`t know what to do with her.

[DTCwordfan]

I drove into Truro once and at the top of Kenywn Hill (where the mother had come up - not Perranporth Hill by the golf club, wendi), there's an old folks home that houses Dementia patients. Anyway, there was this aged woman, beautifully dressed, remonstrating with six of the nurses and suddenly she swings at one of the male ones, connecting on the jaw - and in full view of the line of traffic.

I heard later from one of the cooks there who also works at the local that she had been carted off to the local madhouse in Camborne and that she was notorious for duping young, new carers by dressing up like this and convincing them to let her out of the secure area.

It's very sad though.....

[ladyalex]

MIL wandered off a few times.....I feel your panic, DT.
Local police were excellent, always turned out, sometimes with dogs to search nearby woods.
On one memorable occasion she had walked into town and booked into a hotel.
By this time we had arranged for a call to be put out on local radio and one of the domestic staff in the hotel recognised her. How in heavens name she had managed to book into somewhere will always defeat us. And why a receptionist took the booking astonishes us to this day.

[Hopkirk]

Near where my parents used to live there was a junction near a residential home.

One of the residents used to stand there and direct traffic. Apparently there were occasional prangs when people trusted his beckoning gestures.

[DTCwordfan]

Brilliant Hopkirk, almost worthy of a Mr Bean sketch!

Wow, Lady A, you really wonder sometimes, but once that deep side of the brain gets activated, it's amazing what they can do.

[ladyalex]

It was a hotel that she had been very familiar with....but not one that she had ever stayed in....lunches or dinners, weddings or funerals only....
We never got to the bottom of exactly what happened as the hotel staff contacted the police and they brought her home.
Needless to say, no information could,be got out of her, she was just tired and wanted to go to bed.

[DTCwordfan]

My mother can't remember what transpired already - even when we turned back to go to the police and Tesco's, I think that she had thought that she had come from the house and got agitated about 'not being able to walk anywhere herself.' In fact, the venom associated with this continued in the police station and only stopped in Tescos when I was letting the manager there that, obviously, she had been found. I got some demeaning remark from the mother, and I just turned on her, tersely, in front of the desk and with all there listening, "Move now over here, young woman" and headed off to the newspaper stand. That took the bails off the stumps.....

[nungate]

Happened to us as well DT. My brother called me to tell me our Mum had disappeared, she been saying stuff about wanting to see her mum and dad, which gave us a starting point to look, I sent him off to check their old addresses while best beloved and I drove down to the town where they live, we left Queenie at home on phone duty. She was left to call all the relatives asking whether they'd seen her. We had to pass the local cemetery on our way so we checked there in case she'd gone there, no luck. We then went to check out her old childhood home, I had a vague idea of where it was but not the house number. We combed that area and were just heading away when we saw a young chap, with my mother on his arm. Brakes slammed on. Turns out she'd gone to her childhood home, which was unlocked and the chap found her sitting on his sofa! He wasn't able to get any real sense out of her, but she had taken the peg basket, full of clothes pegs and a couple of Christmas cards that had at least her address on them, after giving her some tea and biccies, they set out to find her house which was when we found them. I have no idea how she had even managed to get there as it was far from her house and she is crippled with arthritis so it can't have been easy, it was also freezing, and she had to cross a couple of really busy roads. How she managed it is beyond me. Since that happened we had sensors put on the doors to let us know when she left and keys were also hidden.

[DTCwordfan]

Ouch nungate....

I wasn't expecting an escape from within town though - more fool me! Oh well, all down to learning and that's what this is all about, trying to be one step ahead of the game.

[nungate]

They're a worry so they are! Parents eh? Who'd have them? ;-) At any rate I know where she is these days (sadly)