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Well to be honest I don’t know where to start to give you a update peeps!! I know its been a while but I just haven’t had the time, well here I go………

We were told by the hospital at Blackburn Royal 2wks ago that they were planning to send my Grandma home soon once her SATS had improved and stabilized. Now we were a little surprised to say the least.
Basically the op that my Grandma had just had was a larger one than the one last year, she has also had a pacemaker fitted due to her heart keep stopping and she had been bed bound for 5wks. So for them to say they were even thinking about sending her straight home worried us, last year she went to Rehab to get her back on her feet before she went home but due to NHS cuts this could not happen this time.

So time to start the ball rolling with Nursing home’s.

A week last Friday my Mum and I decided to start looking.
Where to start though?
My Mum looked through the paperwork and suggestions that you guys had gratefully sent me and we set a plan out, she would come to my house for 9am and we would start with the closest which meant Addison Court.
Now I know Cashy had informed me that he had a friend that had been there and it wasn’t too clever in the dementia part for his own reasons but didn’t know about the residential side.

Me Mum arrived at my house and we walked down to Addison Court as it is only at the bottom of my street. We were warmly welcomed by one of the managers to say that they didn’t know we were going (we thought it were best to catch them off guard!).
She sat us down in the office and made us a brew, now the first impression that both me and Mum got when we walked towards the office is how clean everything looked and smelt which to me is a good sign.

My Mum went through everything that had happened to my Grandma over the past year and that the hospital had told us that they were planning to send my Grandma home soon but we didn’t feel like she was 100% to go home. We were talked through some things that the home did i.e activities, days out, meals, and care, and then asked if we wanted to look around.

We had just stepped outside the office to start looking when my Mums phone rang, the hospital.

“Hiya, the doctor has decided to discharge her after tea today to her home”

Yep you can imagine my Mum’s response, but there were no budging them. They had asked my Grandma if she felt ready to leave and she had replied yes (my Grandma’s memory isn’t good, she cant remember half the things she has gone through and she doesn’t class herself as ill or old even though she is!) so the nurse told my Mum that she couldn’t go against my Grandma’s wishes!
So once my Mum had calmed down we had a look around Addison Court including the nursing top floor for residents that need special care (yes I agree Cashy) and we were impressed with the residential side.
It were clean and plenty of staff around to answer different questions we had.
We had a look through the menu they had for each day and through the different activities they had done recently.

We were then back into the office and both me and Mum knew what each other were thinking without words………..it would be a good idea for her to come here for a month and see how she likes it and see how they treat her. So with the help of the owner we arranged for Grandma to go to Addison Court straight from hospital that night.

Yes I know what some of you are thinking, it were the first place that we had seen and that we had rushed into this but what else could we do? We both had the “good gut feeling” and sometimes you just have to trust that.

Grandma has been there now just over a week and seems to have settled in well, we took her TV from her house and other bits and bobs to make it seem more homely and so far so good. She does seem to spend quite a bit of time in her room watching her TV but that is just my Grandma when we aren’t there with her, she is quite a shy person when on her own. She does potter about and seems to like the staff.
She is being showered every morning by a member of staff just while she gets herself steady again and when we are not with her she is on hourly checks 24/7 just incase she has another “funny do” or epileptic fit so what more can we ask for?

She hasn’t took part in any activities as yet as she is either out with us or still a bit shy yet but all in all I think this was a good “gut feeling”.

Thankyou all for your help it has been great, lets see what the next three weeks bring.