Snapshot 1 The First Signs

It is summer 2008. My mother is living quite happily and indpendently as she approaches her 78th birthday. She is living in her own flat, she has a wide circle of friends, she is physically active, she comes to visit us and others around the UK travelling by herself, and she is volunteering for a charity in their offices 2 days a week working alongside a team of people at least half her age. Of course her life (like all of our lives) is much more than this bald description, but the key point is that she is about as far from the prevalent stereotype of an 'elderly' person as you could get, with no mobility issues (her flat is on the first floor), no isolation, no lack of independence.

Out of the blue, my mother phones me when we are holiday in France, having received our postcard. She is absolutely insistent that we hadn't told her we were going away. I know I have been busy, but of course this is not the case. I laugh and say don't be so silly, we've visited friends she knows, we've called her from the holiday. My mother hangs up having insisted again crossly she didn't know anything about this and we have hidden it from her.

Some background to this is that my mother has had mental health issues for much of her life, but that through medication and the oversight of a thoughtful family doctor, she has not been debilitated by these apart from a few points in her life. However, as her daughter I think of this within the context of her sometimes abrasive personaility and don't focus on the rather different tone and content of the conversation - my mother is not cross that we are in France and she is not, she is absolutely unable to recall several conversations.

Neither of us know this at the time, but that phone call is the start of a descent into 'care for the elderly' as my mother's physical and mental health deteriorates rapidly and she is immediately 'recategorised' as a frail, elderly person in need of care - for which she must pay - rather than a woman with physical and mental health needs to be 'treated' by the NHS. Our parallel descent into the Circles of Hell has begun. Alas, unlike Dante, we have no guide and we quickly realise that an approach based on rationality, professionalism and compassion is a modern heresy for the NHS and Social Services representatives we encounter.