Caring for elderly parents? Pop in for support and a rant

I'm afraid the Silent Gigolo turned out to be a middle aged Moroccan lady who chatted. But only a little - i think the slack jaw and drool prevented more. I will perfect that look, I'm working on it already. She had magic fingers and an hour passed lickety split.

The rest of MN don't know what they're missing on this thread. They probably think we talk about bedsores and care homes. Well, always.

Protein biscuits? Brand please!

Wtaf Yolo re the death certificate. Can anything else possibly go wrong?

Laughing at the wishful thinking re the "young black man her down the road has".

Dad is getting increasingly patriotic with Flower of Scotland, Scotland the Brave and Danny Boy blasting out of Alexa. He actually shook his fist when singing about Proud Edward's army being forced to "think again" re doing battle with the Scots. That's Edward II at the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314. I joined in, there's no hope.

Yolo I'm sorry to hear about your DH. I hope you're all bearing up and get some sleep this weekend.

Monkey ahem...it's a fee paying school, we've got to pay off these teeth somehow

'the school for stupid choices' I am sorry but that made me laugh! xxx

Mum is the least of my worries atm yolo My DS seems to have been apprenticed to Gummy in the school for stupid choices, and I alternate between worrying and shouting.

Sorry to hear your DH is going through it, hope they can sort this latest issue next week. Mum had some sort of filter fitted in her groin when she developed a clot in her legs, as she couldn't take wafarin, to stop it travelling to her lungs.

DH now home, being DH is nothing ever straightforward... some blood test or other is too high, so he has to go back on Monday to have both legs scanned (most people only have the one - well, I mean they only have one leg scanned, obvs most people have two legs!) They 'think' there might be a clot but cant give anticlotting meds due to rectal bleeding. So he is home, with an alarming list of symptoms we need to keep an eye out for. I am working on premise that if any of these turn up it will be an ambo job, hence having or 3.

I also got the LPA without using a solicitor - £80 or someting online, and the 'expert person' doesnt need to be an expert, our neighbour did it for us.

glad your mum doing ok nota

@Wrongwayup

Thanks, I might well take you up on that, much appreciated.

Don't worry, I saw the funny side. I have a very strange sense of humour at the mo!

Hope you see the funny side. X

Grace not grave. So sorry Freudian slip

Grave. I did my dad's probate without a solicitor. No problem. I am also a tax accountant and specialise in inheritance tax and trusts so pm me if I can help

I thought it was your mum nota but didnt want to get it wrong - that one always makes me laugh. did she like the protein biscuit?? sorry the cakes were a disappointment, I expect it was your fault!!

is it just me, or is Silent Gigolo a great name for a nightclub?

Annandale, thank you. I hope it goes as smoothly for us. (I say "us" as I will be taking mum to the bank)!

someone else I know just lost his dad and his mum doesn't even have her own bank account, and they have no idea where the deeds to the house are, so could be a lot worse I guess!

where do I sign up for the silent gigolo? reminds me of the poster's mum who wanted 'a nice young black man like the lady down the road has'!!

Grace, my experience was absolutely painless with the bank - it helped that there wasn't all that much in the accounts, but the bereavement process was completely straightforward as I had an interim death certificate and was married to dh. I may have made an appointment beforehand, but once that happened it all flowed like water.

Same with probate, again we had a very low complication situation as dh didn't have a lot of assets, but tbh I just filled in the online form following the instructions and had to visit the probate office perhaps twice. It was really straightforward.

I wonder if your Mum's GP is any good, mine was wonderful. I also got very good immediate counselling via Cruse, referred to them by my GP (well actually I rang them before the referral), a lovely woman who helped me very much with the initial phase.

This all applies to you too - I hope you are able to benefit from a tiny bit of space to think x

oh yolo how bizarre....and what a mare for your DH. I hope he is okay. are you posting from hospital?

Honestly, you couldnt make this shit up. On Friday, I got a phonecall from the registrar of deaths, who wanted to check mum's age when she died. 88 I said. Oh I thought it must be wrong he said, somehow someone had written in that she was a baby. Which is horrendously awful but he didnt seem that bothered - suppose they see it all the time. Anyway he's fixed it so shouldnt be a prob for collecting cert on Tues.

DH had another biopsy under GA last Sunday, woke up this morning to say his legs felt 'funny'. To cut a long story short, we had an OOH GP appt (turned out to be our own GP at the hospital) and he is now in the emergency ambulatory unit having all the tests for potential DVT/PE. obs, bloods, ecg, x-ray. Unfortunately because he has cancer clots are quite common (who knew?) and because he is bleeding if it is a clot they will have to very careful if he needs anticoagulants.

Fuck me, it never rains but it pours...

grace thigh dint just hang on in there and remember to breathe.
Un-mumsnetty or not, hugs and kisses to all - we deserve them xxx

afternoon all

Dint, that sounds traumatic all round, do you want an unmumsnetty hug? (do we say that on this board, I always want a hug when on the elderly parent thing).

Thigh amazing job organising everything. Pity your client wasted so much of your time! We nearly sorted out night care for a neighbour - me & dad - but she opted to go to a home which was better for her. She was 95 though.

I'm back home for 2 nights. Still have some anxiety around leaving mum alone but it's so difficult and depressing to be at her place, plus it's not like I can make her grief go away. She's still having massive anxiety about probate etc. I'm hoping after we give the papers to the solicitor she will feel better, but if we get a constant stream of letters after that, I don't know.

She's also massively anxious about changing joint bank accounts just to her name, in case they freeze funds or something. Does anyone have experience of this? Next week we are going to the banks with the death certificate to ask them to change it. Two of her widowed friends have said it was fine and the banks were really helpful and efficient, but poor mum is still panicking.

thigh we don't know yet, cellulitis is also a good candidate.

How hard his life is that was. Should have asked him if he was having a bubble. (Bubble bath = laugh) for you non Londoners

cabbage of course! PA! That's it, forgot. I employ one for my ASD teen but it's such a different thing to what M&D need that I didn't think of it. Of course they'll do different things. I actually use a young NQT SN teacher for AngelChild so it didn't occur to me to return to the same register. Doh!

Off for a massage shortly, yippee! Now all i need is a gigolo who doesn't speak to me, at all, ever. Had a male client phone me yesterday and spent 5 minutes talking about work then he went on for 50 minutes about how hard is life is. Oh piss off.

Dint is it a UTI?

If you need the GP to do it I think £130 sounds about right highby - it’s a lot but not out of line with what they charge for other things - DH and I had adoption medicals recently and I think they were about £100 a pop. The solicitor trying to charge you £1000 for a form you can fill in yourself is despicable though! I would question whether you need the GP tho - when we did it it just needed to be someone unrelated who had known the person 2 years, so an old friend of dad’s did it. Maybe it’s changed?

Thigh Dogsbody/Ears = Personal Assistant and actually not that strange a job - I discovered when hiring dad’s PA that people have them for all sorts of things! They will be expensive through an agency as yolo said but if you do it privately you need employers liability insurance, payroll etc so depends how bothered you are by paperwork (supposing DM won’t do it). In our town there is a disability charity that helps people with PA stuff (they even do our payroll for a not-outrageous sum) or some councils have the same service - help with recruitment (inc a register of PAs looking for work) setting up as an employer etc.

Dint glad your dad is being looked after. Hope you got some sleep.

Just to add, you can organise the whole thing yourself, but read and re-read the instructions as it’s a pain to make a mistake.
Triple check all the pages are there when you send it off.