Caring for elderly parents? Drop in for support, hand holding and whatever you need

oh please may I join you? DM is 87, has had severe osteoporosis and osteoarthritis for 15+ years. DF died 21 years ago so she moved to live near me a couple of years after that (great in theory).

Won't go into all the long and boring details, but I am getting to the end of my tether, and the fear when the phone goes is ridiculous. In theory I'm relatively lucky: work pt from home, both DDs at uni now so not quite the sandwich generation many are in. OTH, she is difficult: will not engage with help apart from cleaner and gardener once a week; a ridiculous snob; very deaf so finds social engagement difficult anyway; 4 falls this year so far, 3 involving paramedics and the most recent with a potential skull fracture.

GP surgery not that interested; every time she speaks to anyone medical she goes all Captain's Wife and is very patronising but also very stoic so people think she's wonderful (which they do on short term acquaintance) and so help is slow to happen.

sorry bit of an essay!! but I do feel all your pain.

Sandwich, I am sorry to hear this. I am only too aware that things may been to be settled and "sorted", but that it can all go wrong in a instant. Perhaps we should coin a word meaning "fear of THE phone call".

If there is rainy day money, I would strongly recommend good quality convalescent care. After my mum broke her hip she spent five weeks in a luxury nursing home. I met someone there whose mother had had several hospital admissions and who was in the habit of giving her mother two week convalescent stays in order to build her up ready to return home. Lots of nice food, company, activities, and nursing staff to deal with some of the post op stuff. This woman described it as a cruise ship that never went in to port. Easy to believe you were on holiday and to enjoy the pampering. I loved the way I could join my mother for lunch, essential when I had set off at 6.00am to get my mum to a morning hospital appointment.

It bought the breathing space we needed to find out what capacity would come back, and to put care arrangements in place. But it was really expensive.

😩😩😩😩

Oh, I'm sorry, Sandwich. I know what you mean about supposed to be relishing retirement.

Sandwich, could you get a private care company in to help with other tasks?

Aarrgghhh indeed!
Sorry to hear this sandwich x

Sadly it often takes a crisis for them to accept they can't manage

Sadly it often takes a crisis for them to accept they can't manage

Sadly it often takes a crisis for them to accept they can't manage

Thanks. The carer goes on 1 Dec, so I think I'll step back for a few days after that, mum needs to realise for herself that she can't manage.

Hi Orchard we feel your pain. I get that it is hard for them to accept that they can no longer live 100% independently, but us stepping in to shore them up isn't a sustainable solution for many of us either.

I'm dropping in to say hello. My mother is 87, on oxygen for pulmonary fibrosis. She fell two months ago, was in hospital for one months then went home. I stayed with her for two very long weeks, then got a live in carer, but mum is stubbornly insisting that she wants to manage on her own. But she won't be able to. I'm tearing my hair out with worry, but I cannot stay any longer with her again as I get so miserable and resentful. Ho hum

My brother is forced goes to his pils every year
My sister stays at home but it's not a nice atmos there
So mum will prob be here
Again

Ha Ha @mrsreynolds I have the same conversation with my brother about him 'not liking hospitals'. I've had my mum every Xmas for the past 20 years, and every year I suggest this is the year it could be his turn.

I'm purposely making no plans for Xmas that Include mum
She knows she is welcome anytime over the holiday but I'm not running around after her
I've got plans for 2 weekends in December and dh and i have planned a day out too
Prob won t see my siblings over Xmas as I won't be Making the effort this year and phoning/texting/making arrangements
Im looking forward to it!

God that sounds rough. Poor you 💐
When mum was in my sister promptly went away for 4 days and I had to have an argument with my brother to get him go one afternoon to visit.
He "doesn't like" hospitals.
Whereas I fucking love them 😡😩

Good on you @mrsreynolds. My DM was in hospital for 10 weeks following a stroke. I drove to see her every day - about an hour each way on a busy motorway, after work. I went every weekend, did all her washing (she'd become incontinent), looked after the house and did her garden. She now complains to everyone, repeatedly, that she missed the summer and how sorry she feels for herself. I spent most of my summer sitting on the M25. She's barely been out of her house for the past three years, so I have no idea what she thinks she missed out on.

Now she is starting to drop hints that she wants to go to all the church Christmas fairs, including one where we used to live which is about an hour's drive away, so would mean a whole Saturday gone in the run up to Christmas. I asked how she intends to get there - no doubt my name is mud with the carers.

(I work full time, have 2 DCs and a house to look after, but she expects me to be at her beck and call.)

Oooops!
Sorry for double post

monkey
I dread to think what my mother has been telling people since our argument a few weeks ago!
I ended up having an argument with a friend about it - she has taken mum under her wing and believes all the lies she tells and her "poor me" schtick. So that's a friendship gone :(
She seems to think my sister and brothers lives are much harder than mine...
Simply untrue
My brother and sil leave their dd with family members 80% of the time and have done since she was 6 weeks old
They are always bailed out financially by family members
They have just been handed £1000s for a house deposit
All I hear is "poor them"
It infuriates me!!
My sisters issues are self made sadly
She's married to a pig which was fine whilst he was earning a huge salary and never home
Now he's not and the cracks are showing
Again all I get is "poor her"
Sigh
I have chronic health issues
A dh that works away
2 dc, one of whom has had an awful year health wise
And she thinks I live some sort of gilded existence
Grrrrrr
Sorry
Didn't mean to rant!
I only work very pt so I'm around more and my job less important
My brother has had - how can I put it? - a checkered job history and walked out of/been fired from many.
My sister's situation is sad but as I said - only she can make changes
I've changed my will
My family get nothing
It's taken a looooong time but finally I'm treating them as they treat me
They aren't going to like it 😁😁😁

monkey
I dread to think what my mother has been telling people since our argument a few weeks ago!
I ended up having an argument with a friend about it - she has taken mum under her wing and believes all the lies she tells and her "poor me" schtick. So that's a friendship gone :(
She seems to think my sister and brothers lives are much harder than mine...
Simply untrue
My brother and sil leave their dd with family members 80% of the time and have done since she was 6 weeks old
They are always bailed out financially by family members
They have just been handed £1000s for a house deposit
All I hear is "poor them"
It infuriates me!!
My sisters issues are self made sadly
She's married to a pig which was fine whilst he was earning a huge salary and never home
Now he's not and the cracks are showing
Again all I get is "poor her"
Sigh
I have chronic health issues
A dh that works away
2 dc, one of whom has had an awful year health wise
And she thinks I live some sort of gilded existence
Grrrrrr
Sorry
Didn't mean to rant!
I only work very pt so I'm around more and my job less important
My brother has had - how can I put it? - a checkered job history and walked out of/been fired from many.
My sister's situation is sad but as I said - only she can make changes
I've changed my will
My family get nothing
It's taken a looooong time but finally I'm treating them as they treat me
They aren't going to like it 😁😁😁

@mrsreynolds reducing contact with my mum from every day to 2/3 times a week as you did probably saved my sanity (and marriage). She has carers who go in 3 times a day instead, and frankly they get paid to listen to her so I don't have to. At first they/their agency would phone me two or three times a day to ask me random things which meant that I wasn't getting the time away, so I asked them to contact my golden boy brother instead during one particular week, and it has now become manageable.

In the meantime, DM is feeling very sorry for herself, and slating anyone that doesn't agree with how hard she's had it.

That sounds tough on your friend sandwich
Mums still very cross with me 😀 but I hate all her silly games and the lies. Maybe it's my age. I'm afraid my bullshit tolerance is pretty much zero these days!