Living alone for the first time and feeling a bit vulnerable

[BlueHotel]

My partner and I moved back to UK from France last October because it was becoming obvious he had dementia. We are in an area where I lived 30 years ago and close to where he used to live but I have no friends here now and only one of his is in contact. My partner moved into a care home in May and since then I have been able to get out and begin to make friends - early days.

I recently joined a bridge club and they are adamant that they need an emergency contact. "you might collapse here and be whisked off to hospital and need someone to go to your house to pick up things for you"! Not surprising, the average age there is probably about 70 (I'm 78). My only daughter lives at the other end of the country.

I'm getting a key safe and I will ask one of my new friends if she would be my emergency contact at the club and have the code just in case - that seems less of an imposition than actually holding a key. But now I've started worrying about having an accident at home. I'm fit, healthy and active and have become much more risk aware than I ever was. But the fact is that if I fell and couldn't get to my phone nobody would miss me for quite a while.

Any advice?

Yes! Investigate getting a call system such that you wear a bracelet or pendent around your neck, to press a button on it to call for help.
My mum has it and if she presses the button a disembodied voice calls out to her from a “box” attached to her phone line. If they don’t get a reply, they call me or failing that, an ambulance. They did that when she had a heart attack. Worked well. They also contacted me when she hadn’t been seen by neighbours for a few days because the neighbours knew she has the call system & she’d given them the number.

Ask AGE UK (Google them) for advice.

Key box is also a good idea but tell someone the code. Was useful when my brother in law had a fall last year & couldn’t get up. He lay there 24 hours before we happened to visit. He was stubborn & had refused to pay a monthly subscription for the call system. He later died so it’s important to get yourself sorted whilst you’ve got the mental capacity to do so.

Idontdoyoga Thanks. Good idea to contact AgeUK. I will give the code to my new friend (if she agrees, I think she will) and to my daughter.