News about mum is there's nothing much that's new

This is what often happens when I go up to see mum in the nursing home. We will normally make a FaceTime call to my brother in the US and then after that is finished we will get ready to go outside. We'll go for a walk in the park today when I go up to the nursing home because the weather is rather good.

In the park we'll sit and watch the dogs. People bring their dogs to the sports field inside the park because it is a designated leash-off place, where they can let their dogs run around and sniff things, in the way dogs like to do. We sit on a park bench and watch the walkers and their dogs make rounds of the oval. The dogs may go running off to retrieve a ball, or else cavort happily as one dog greets the dog belonging to another master.

Once we return inside though we might have 30 minutes before lunch is scheduled to be served, so we'll go back to mum's room and she will then lie down on the bed and zizz off. The bed or the chair, she doesn't mind. She has no trouble catching a few zeds wherever she find herself.

On the health front, we went to an imaging lab not long ago to check her heart function and as the GP suspected she has heart failure, which must then be added to the list of other major health problems mum faces. Those are the myelodysplastic syndrome and the Alzheimer's disease. With all these things to deal with it's good that I managed to get mum into a good nursing home. She often says to me, "I think you did very well to find this place" or else "I don't mind staying here, we don't need to move" and I just nod quietly, happy that mum is not bothered by her surroundings. She has been in permanent aged care since December.

One thing that had bothered me was mum's relationship with her friend in the nursing home who I have elsewhere referred to as H. In my mind H is rather sharp in the mouth. She often says things that obviously trouble mum, or that might wound her, but mum usually responds to these barbs with silence. Other than that they seem to get along well. When I arrive at the nursing home on one of my visiting days I might find mum sitting on her wheeled walker inside H's room. It appears that they sit and talk and keep each other company for long stretches of time.

I have decided to keep my mouth closed about my concerns with H when it comes to the nursing home staff, although from things they have said over the months it is clear that they know what kind of person H is. She is a bossy person, and can be a bit of a bully. She tends to call out to the nursing staff from her room by yelling "Nursey, nursey!" from where she is sitting in her chair. This can be caused by any manner of concern, and even by nothing at all, it seems. She just needs to be fussed over and looked after. Sometimes when I am there she will call out like this a few times and then she will switch to calling out "Jude, Jude!" in an effort to attract my mother's attention. Mum will often just continue to sit in her chair, unfussed. I think in many ways she has become accustomed to H and her habits.