Sheerwater House

Dementia is a thief, it robbed us of our mum who became more difficult to care for at home. With heavy heart we realised that the time for permanent care was upon us. It's not easy to make a decision that is going to affect my mum for the rest of her life. We had given the names of several local care homes all of which we decided to check out. We turned up unanounced as we felt that this would be the best way to see each home, they wouldn't have time to put on a show or be on "best behaviour", we would see each home as it usually is. Sad to say the first two fell below expectation. We wouldn't have wanted to be living in either of these so we weren't going to let mum live there. When we arrived unannounced at Sheerwater House and at the most inconvenient time, we were warmly greeted, and told we could look around wherever we wanted, we looked everywhere. What struck us was the warm friendly attitude between residents and staff. It felt like we had been invited to a warm and friendly family home, not some institution that was just being paid to provide care. We just knew this was the best for mum. Mum moved in and became quite attached to her friends and her carers who cared for her as if she was their mum. We liked to visit mum often and I do mean often and no matter what time we turned up to see mum we were always made welcome and mum was always nicely dressed, full make up whenever she requested it, and generally very well turned out. She was always treated with respect and her dignity preserved as much as was possible due to the dimentia and her physical limitations. But dimentia is cruel and mum sometimes had to go to hospital as she grew more fragile. The doctors sadly advised us we had reached the time to hope for the best but to prepare for the worst and it was agreed by the doctors that mum would be better off back in her own bed at Sheer water House. The carers were wonderful, we were privileged to have more time with mum than we could have hoped for and it is fair to say that the loving and kind care she received was a major part in us enjoying this extra time. On my mum's behalf and on our behalf I would like to thank not only the staff but also the residents( who sadly will never understand how much they meant to our mum) for all their love, kindness and hard work. Thank You.
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