My grandmother, 94, bed bound, although no physical reason for this, but she is 94 so if she wants to lay in bed thats fine.
She always had to be the most ill person she knows. If anyone says they are ill she is always worse then anyone else. My my grandfather was ill, she was always worse. Even in his last days when he rapidly went down hill she always drew the attention to herself. His last few hours he rapidly declined and my spoke with the GP who said to call and ambulance. When on the phone to the ambulance she starts yelling she has chest pain. Two ambulances were called. The paramedic was rude with my mother for wasting time calling an ambulance for my grandfather, who subsequently died at home on the floor several hours later. My grandmother then decides she has no pain and is fine, once they had left him alone.
When he died, I came a bit later than others as I had to take the children to school and explain to them what had happened (and warn the school), two of my children have additional needs so I needed to deal with them first. When I entered I was immediately met with my grandmother shouting that one was was paying her attention. I was at that moment hugging her and a neighbour holding her tea. She complained throughout the day and subsequent days that she was not getting enough attention and she was a widow now. She did the say on the day of my grandmothers funeral when people had made too much fuss of a dead woman.
She accuses others of hurting her frequently, she did this both before and after my grandfather died. She often accused him of hurting her and hated it when he pointed out she had done these things to herself she would rage at everyone. She does the same now, she has accused several family members, the carers, nurses and other visitors of hitting her, throwing her off the bed, pinching her, throwing things at her. She can tell dramatic stories of blooding gushing from her nose, which there is no evidence off. We have all caught her pinching herself at times and she has told people directly that if they don’t do what she wants than she will tell the police they hit her.
My grandmother is obsessed with food. My mother does her an online shop once a week costing around £60-90. In addition to this there are a minimum of two weekly tops up of milk, bread, eggs etc a week (even though the first shop account for this), she will in addition ask neighbours and phone people like the cleaner, gardener, hairdresser etc to get someone else she hadn’t got any of. Carers go on around 7am and along with the providing care, will make her eggs, toast, sometimes cereal etc and a flask of tea, then around 8 my father goes up, provides toast and tea again, then at 1130, she has a local cafe provide her with her lunch, which will be a main meal, usually a full booked breakfast (like a big one) and dessert, plus usually a meal for teatime like salad. Then carers come at 130, the cafe will put her stuff on a plate and bring it to her (she is in bed) and leave, so carers remove the plate (if no one has before) and bring her soup, salad, pies, a ready meal or eggs (or anything else she requests), makes more tea, My father usually calls in around 3, will make her bread with pickles ham etc or cakes etc and tea, carers come again around 5, will make her tea, sometimes bring her his salad from the cafe but with extras like soup, breadstick, cakes etc. Then my dad calls in around 6, makes tea etc. cleans up dishes from the day. Neighbour comes in around 630 with goodies (fresh bread, cakes, pasty pie etc.), other neighbour goes in around 7 and cleans up and carers come around 730 and make supper, usually bread and butter, tea etc. That is without any visits from my mother, and all the other people who always bring food (because she hasn’t eaten all day). She also has a supply of Pringles, sweets, biscuits etc around her all the time. She’s surprisingly not fat, although she did have a bowel resection (we think, although recently found out many of the medical conditions she told us she has were lies).
She soils herself a lot though and makes herself sick a lot. She does has gallstones and her extremely high fat diet probably doesn’t help that, she had never had much shame. She always used to go to the toilet with the doors open and walk around naked. She also wastes a lot of food but equally the frequency she is eating even if she isn’t finishing her meals its still a lot of food.
Nothing is ever good enough either. If we go anywhere people pick her stuff up. My mother goes to the market and gets bag fulls of stuff, sweets, fresh cakes, cheese, cockles, pasties, pasty pie, bread, ham etc and we walk in and show her everything and she starts getting upset and she wanted a Chelsea bun, she hadn’t known we were going or asked for one, my mother had asked about one but she doesn’t like them “spicy” whatever that means and the ones in the market were “spicy” so mu mum didn’t get one. But every situation is like that, its never thanks for getting this for me, its always complaint that it is not enough. Same when we go to M&S, whatever we get isn’t enough or right, she has no issue eating the things we get, just not enough or everything she wants. My mother is a wheelchair user, so any task is difficult for her at the best of times but nothing is good enough.
We went away on holiday with my parents, a few days before she calls an ambulance and says she has chest pain (she has done this several times) and they ended up sending her in. We spoke with SW and carrier who said go anyway, which we did, it was literally an hour away in a cottage. She got discharged, we called and asked what we should do and they said it was fine hospital had already spoken with carers etc. and all would be fine. Well ambulance transport took her home and out her in chair, which is perfectly adequate but she prefers to be in bed. She was Brough home at 12:50, carers came at 1:30, in that time she called neighbours at work several times, called carers and then called GP surgery who called my mum and complained that she had left her unattended all day and in a unsafe situation. Frankly they know better than anyone my mothers health situation and I am unsure why it was so unsafe. She called people in tears saying she was so dehydrated and not had anything to eat or drink since the night before and she felt faint. My mother is obviously very upset and ended up cutting the weekend short to come home because she felt everyone was judging her.
Money is often key to her manipulation, she will buy people with offering money to them, she will call up people like her gardener and offer him money to come make her a cup of tea because she hasn’t had one all day, which given the amount of care visits and visit from my parents and her neighbours is clearly a lie. She will tell us that the hairdresser is now charging £50 a visit, which she makes cheques out to on a weekly basis, then when she got upset that the hairdresser also went to a neighbour that she doesn’t like, she called up the neighbour and told her the hairdresser had stolen a significant amount of cash from her, when the hairdresser found out she was extremely upset and refused to go back, when she spoke about it later she has she has never been given one cheque as was really upset to hear that my grandmother had said she was charging so much, let alone writing cheques.
New hairdresser turned up, no idea where from, my grandmother “can't remember” and changes £30 for not even washing her hair. Same with cleaner, who just turned up and again she can’t remember where from. We have seen no evidence of any cleaning at the bungalow. Neighbours were previously doing this for free. At Christmas she seemed to have assembly a very large pile of chocolates and second hand gifts, she “can’t remember” where these came form, only that they were “very expensive”.
She had very frequently lost large sums of money, several hundred pounds a time. She spending both in cash and on card is substantial. She often says she doesn’t know where the Money has gone. She has several times told us carers have taken her card or taken cash, or neighbours, family member etc. Sometimes money turns up and sometimes it doesn’t, we often find money stuffed in various places. Places that she apparently can’t get to.
She has several times gotten herself in messes by cancelling cheques or direct debits for things she doesn’t want to pay, like council tax or my grandfathers funeral, she has merged bank accounts and then moved money around so she has ended up in overdraft and payments declined. She will say things like she must have had all her money stolen, blamed carers for taking her card and then later we call bank and find out she has moved the money herself.
My mother has extremely poor health herself, she has several conditions such and lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, osteoporosis, she currently got several spinal fractures herself and her health is massively declining with all that she is having to do for my grandmother.
All over Christmas there was drama. She has promised she would go into respite over Christmas but the refused when it was offered. Every Christmas has been a nightmare, she has refused to come to anyones house and wants people there all day and all the neighbours in for drinks etc etc. most neighbours now give her a wide birth these days after her behaviour escalating after my grandfathers death, I have 4 children, two of which has additional needs, and Christmas is a really difficult and sensitively managed situation for us as it is. This year she ordered 2 Christmas diners from her cafe on Christmas Eve with puddings and another meal, she has a local church deliver another Christmas dinner, we provided her with one, the neighbours like family also made her one, plus others including us brought desserts and other foods, and she ordered a turkey. Of course, she is telling everyone that she didn’t have anything to eat at Christmas and saw no one, we did visit but I kept the visit short, mostly has my kids were really not coping my Christmas afternoon, I spent an hour but my kids only lasted 20 minutes (my husband took them home). I guess I should add we all live doors away from each other.
The last few days its blown up again that she has no money, she is telling people she needs to wrote cheques, which have bounced, she has no cash, over £200 gone within 24 hours, she is accusing the cleaner and hairdresser (different one that admits she charges 30 and doesn’t even wash her hair), nurse is calling SW (which isn’t much help as she works part time and thus far hasn’t gone anything other than tell us she doesn’t have dementia so its all down to her). My dad send the cleaner home and said they would be contacting the police.
The thing is, I don’t think much of the cleaner or the hairdresser but I don’t think they have stolen, I think this is more games. My mother is beside herself upset as usual and there is drama after drama everyday over Christmas and like I say its taken a massive toll of my mothers health.
It doesn’t feel like there is anything to do, I’m just at a loss really. I feel my parents need to pull away and leave her deal with this (she apparently has been assessed twice as mental competent), but they are not like that. My grandmother is frankly very rude and cruel to my mum. Makes comments all the time about her being stupid and fat etc. thats he can’t do anything right and critiques her food etc. (my mum has made her a meal most days over Christmas), she just horrid to her. Will forget her birthday etc and than on the same day make a massive deal out of a carers birthday and given them £50 and send my mum to buy wine and flowers etc. my mum spends so much time upset and trying to do anything to get acceptance from my grandmother. Its really sad and I’m not sure what I can do anymore.
Please or to access all these features
Please
or
to access all these features
Elderly parents
Sorry very long but I don't know what to do ...
26 replies
Someonesayroadtrip · 03/01/2020 13:54
OP posts:
Don’t want to miss threads like this?
Weekly
Sign up to our weekly round up and get all the best threads sent straight to your inbox!
Log in to update your newsletter preferences.
You've subscribed!
Please create an account
To comment on this thread you need to create a Mumsnet account.