Custard

My dad & a custard slice, March 2019

“Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion;
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.”

‘All the world’s a stage’, from ‘As You Like It’ by William Shakespeare

My dad really liked custard, ‘Crowther custard’ especially.  Crowther custard was custard in which a spoon could stand vertically.  He always made sure he got the skin off the top. 

He had always had a sweet tooth, which is probably a reason why he wore dentures.  His fondness for cakes and desserts seemed to increase as his dementia progressed.  He’d take a few mouthfuls of his dinner, often a firm favourite, before giving up, either down to little appetite, or more likely the frustration of not remembering how to eat with a knife and fork.  But he’d almost always still devour pudding.

I think he found his dentures uncomfortable, even though my mum had paid privately to have NHS dentures further crafted to fit his mouth.  He’d developed a habit of taking them out mid meal and placing them in the middle of the dining table. But for a period when he’d had to endure coping without them he’d been very self-conscious, often placing his hand in front of his mouth when he spoke.   And so he had them in most of the time, allowing him to flash his winning smile almost to the end.

I say almost because during his first hospital admission, somewhere in the transition between two wards, his dentures went missing and could not be found.  It’s unclear how this happened as we were led to believe my dad was receiving one to one nursing on account of his dementia and agitation.  We understand that there had been no checklist done before moving wards.

The Matron, Ward Sisters and nurses looked thoroughly and were deeply apologetic when they could not be found. We checked in with the two dentists to see if they could be replaced but neither had kept the mould.  If my dad needed dentures, we would have to start from scratch.

The hospital offered to pay for replacements and found a dentist able and willing to come to the care home to which he was to be discharged.  But there was no way my dad was going to endure the arduous process involved now.

That afternoon I spoke to the social worker.  I think she felt she was being sympathetic, but when I told her about the dentures going missing she replied that ‘it happens all the time… and hearing aids too’.  She then went on to advise that my dad was ‘in a place of safety’.   I suggested she might reconsider whether someone is safe in a place where patients routinely lose the means to eat or to hear but she was on auto-pilot.

So he spent the last few weeks of his life without teeth and then developed thrush in his mouth.  And all he could or would eat, before giving up food altogether, was custard.