Caring for elderly relatives? Pop in for support, a hand hold, advice, whatever you need.

oh yes, and in the middle of the night in hospital they take you out of your isolation ward and take you to a room full of machines where they do tests on you - wtf?? she told me and DD2 this and then said 'you do believe me dont you?' and I made the mistake of saying it seemed rather odd to which I got 'oh well you never believe a word I say' so swift change of subject reqd!

c.diff negative, however says can no longer walk. Met with consultant, she will be in there until at least Mon and more likely end of next week which gives me a breather. He wasnt very cheerful, I explained my concerns that she would come home, fall over again and repeat ad infinitum and he said yes probably. OTH she has the autonomy to make her own decisions once they discharge her; so I guess it will be a case of wait until the next fall. So I have made my mind up that I will no longer put my life on hold; if I'm away and she falls over she will have to use the lifeline to get paramedics to put her back on her feet or take her back to hospital. It sounds so harsh, but we/I have missed out on so much already these past few years I cant keep doing it just on the grounds that the next fall is the one that carries her off.

Thanks, all. You are strengthening my resolve. I might start carrying a pebble, too!

Yolo you are right. that is all you can do- which is bloody marvellous, covering all bases. You must protect yourself.

nota love the early release from school!

I have come to the conclusion today that nothing I do over the next few weeks will be right, so I am going to have to do the thing that causes me the least angst. She is desperate to come home but in isolation; cant get a carer because potential c.diff; not safe to come home as will fall over; 24 hour carer cannot cope alone on extended basis; cant come home over w/e as I will be away for work; cant come home to an empty house with no food etc.
So currently: waiting for c.diff result, will try and get 24 hour carer from Monday plus a service our trust provides called Hilton Nursing who come in 3-4 times a day. Then, I assume she will fall over again and we rinse and repeat!!!! FML

I use grey rock as well. DM ocassionally gets narked with me over it if she notices as I give minimal responses to things and refused to get drawn when she is criticising (me or others). She will then say that I might as well go home, which is bliss, like being released early from school!

Love the grey rock idea- brilliant. Dripping in Teflon maybe?
Hope things as as well as they can be....

rocking in a corner also helps

I learnt ages ago never to tell DM about anything bothering me because she's like a bloody dog with a bone...

Elevenerife! I shall be thinking that to myself from now on.

I shall also be trying to do more Grey Rock. I mostly do, but where I struggle most is with the lying (I’m not going to mince words here because the mindbogglingly false versions of events she gives are lies). I feel I ought to challenge them but, actually, there’s little point so I shall do even more eye-rolling and grey rocking.

That's so interesting, kinda what I used to do without realising it!

Not heard of grey rock, sounds interesting?

It's interesting seeing you all talking about how different they can be depending on who they are with. This is what I'm really struggling with as we prepare DM's funeral. I'm getting endless gushing messages from her friends saying what a beautifully kind and loving person she was and yet my teenage children are struggling to know how to react when they have witnessed a completely different side to her character.
I'm trying to explain ( and believe myself) that she was a good friend who did so many things to help others but that unfortunately, perhaps due to her own childhood, she found it hard to know how to be the Mum she wanted to be.

Has anyone adopted the Grey Rock technique? I’m just beginning to read about it - it seems (more or less) like a different version of Teflon.

oh I think they can switch on the behaviour. Mine is a dream if she thinks she is going to get what she wants, however bad the potential outcome could be. But she can also be absolutely poisonous; it's ok-ish when she does it to me, but when she does it to my DDs that's a completely different thing and I dont react well at all.

annandale that sounds incredibly stressful etc

On a completely different level but my mother pulled out of her house purchase AGAIN yesterday, which makes possibly 5 times in 3 months? I'm losing track. Then as of this morning it was apparently back on again, according to my sister. I get that she doesn't want to move from her house and that in some ways it is quite convenient - bungalow, nice view, reasonably near a shop - but in other ways it really isn't - hours from any of us, up a steep hill from the shop so she always drives even though her driving is very fragile, steep stone steps to get to the house itself. We've all now agreed that if she hates the (lovely, ground floor, pool on site, central, ten minutes from me) flat she is moving to, she can use it as a base to find somewhere else. Or at least we keep thinking it's agreed. Her estate agents are saintly, particularly as she is extremely rude to them - my lovely mum as was

Crikey pickle 😇😇🏅🏅for you! And yolo so sorry to hear- at least it’s keeping her there. Hope you are ok.
Buckets of Teflon and 🍷🍷to all!

yy to the constant wearingness of it all. a week?!!! are you quite mad? or just terribly terribly brave? I couldnt do that, hats off and masses of teflon to you

god pickle I swear they are sent to drive us mad. DM been moved to isolation on diff ward as still has diarrhoea but no c.diff results as yet. From my POV this is no bad thing as cant arrange care until we know what is going on... can imagine she is ranting though esp as I cant go today and I deliberately didnt give her her phone yesterday.