The new shiny 2019 thread for anyone caring for elderly parents

The best way I can describe it is that I can close that chapter now because we wrote the end together and I can move forward with writing the next. I love this oneday, its very powerful. It feels funny not to be prostrated with grief, but I honestly do think I did the best I could for a long time, and I dont think mum would have wanted me to fall apart for her. She would have been pleased with her funeral.

thigh that is lovely to be able to have those kind of conversations, treasure them. your poor Dad, but as we all say all the time: what point is there in life when you cant do the things you want to do or be what you want to be? xxx

detox I sympathise with the feeling of being always 'on call' and on red alert every time the phone rings. Nearly 3 months after mum's death and it is just starting to wear off a little bit. You are totally not a wuss, being on edge all the time is so bloody tiring. Take some time for you if you possibly can.

It is like the house of plague here today, DH went back to bed this morning, and then straight back to bed after lunch as knackered. DD1 is home from uni with a vicious ear infection, docs for her on Monday and am praying we dont have to do OOH visit tomorrow. She's had on and off ear probs since October, so I am going to go into GP with her on Mon and do the kick ass mummy bit (even though she is 22!!)

On the positive side had a gorgeous walk this am with the lady who brought us our rescue dog and her dog and mine. Was really nice, and am hoping we are going to be friends - all my good friends are spread far and wide so would be really nice to have someone local.

Your dad was awesome @Thigh🏆

oneday you've perfectly hit the nail on the head. I know Dad's fading and so does he i think. He's very cuddly and affectionate and tells me what a good daughter I've been and i say what a good Dad he's been. I remind him about us planting their vegetable garden when I was a kid and how he taught me to knit, darn, sew, skip and cook. Also how to punch when someone was bullying me. I remember my school was threatening to cane me for smoking and he rang them and said if they touched me he would sue them individually and separately for assault. He was awesome and we talk about all that. I feel there's nothing unsaid.

I'm sad, but not haunted by what ifs.

yolo I do hope your DH can be made more comfortable not being able to sleep on top of everything else is just unfair!

Dint poorly animals are such a worry paws crossed for your cat- lets hope your DH can get used to a cleaner soon it is a big task for anyone to take on regularly

one your thread made a lot of sense to me and did hit home with how I felt after my Dad died.

thigh I totally understand the dog analogy

Well a week of rollercoasters eith my Mum. GTwo emergency panic calls at the weekend to sort out her exploding heating that was making weird noises - it wasn't making any noises at all. She had phoned the gas board and they understandably told her to turn off the boiler and she had turned off the electricity so all a bit of a muddle.

Then in the week she saw an elderly care mental health nurse and Mum was miraculously better - she does not want me to phone her as my phone calls make her worry about things as I always ask her how she is, she is not anxious and she can cope perfectly well at home. I do not need to take her to her CT scan next week.

So I back off and did not phone her on Thursday but was waken up at 5.30am by a phone call from her saying her heating was exploding and I had to go and sort it out then........

I think the hardest bit of all of this is the lack of control - I know she needs more help and if she does not get it she will call on me 24/7 but I am obviously a woose as I can not deal with this and find it extremely stressful. It is like being on call all the time just waiting.

What it does mean is that I do not go and see her as much as I should I was ill last weekend and this week just have to catch up on work and normal stuff but that will result in panic calls later god knows what time.

Anyway I will try to find a solution that works for all of us - back to the drawing board.

Hang on in there everyone remember to look after you as well as looking after everyone else it's not too early is it?

sandwich I'm doing ok and am finally ok with saying that I am ok - if that makes sense? yolo, Iamdanish and lello I seem to have jumped into the same boat as all of you. I'm not falling apart and I really thought that I would. Everything was so quick and intense with mum at the end and we had so many really candid chats that, looking back, we almost grieved together and she has left me with so much strength to move on. The best way I can describe it is that I can close that chapter now because we wrote the end together and I can move forward with writing the next.

Thanks everyone for the hugs. Re cat - I dreamed about a week ago that we were looking for a pair of kittens because we had no cats in the house - don't know whether subconsciously I knew the cat was seriously ill. Can't share that with DH because it suggests that he (cat) won't survive.

Knock on effects with Dad - he needs a cleaner, but I can't add anyone else to the mix at the moment. So looks like I'll have to take that on. I'm just hoping he gets used to carers coming in and thus stops imagining extra ones. He's complaining at having 6 people coming in. Suppose for our own peace of mind we should fix up a camera pointing at front door so we know there isn't an "extra" person coming in. (This paranoia is infectious!)

yolo sympathy for your Dad. And for you, who is coping with it.

Dint paws crossed for your cat, pets are so important aren't they? Much more than they would ever guess. Nothing more absorbent than fur for weeping into.

Yolo your poor DH, as you may remember i have a PhD that i don't want in bums. Paws crossed for him too.

we are making a lot of shit jokes!! thankyou for the sandwich much appreciated (currently on glass 957, must go to bed soon...)

thanks sandwich he is ok-ish. well, not really. rectal cancer is a shit thing, literally... he doesnt sleep much because is constantly up either trying to go and failing or exploding (sorry TMI). It is very uncomfortable for him and he is doing the bloke thing, I keep suggesting he phone gp and ask for someting to help him sleep (because he is much better during the day when distracted!), think he might do it next week. Had radiography planning appt today, he has 3 v small tattoo-ed dots, one on each hip and one at the top of his arse crack. told him I would join them up and put an arrow over his arse with felt pen (sympathetic, moi). Chemo planning appt next week, and another MRI scan as last one was several months ago. If has grown much they will do a colostomy before starting treatment. Fingers xd it hasnt, because this will have been going on for 4 months before he starts treatment, and that's a long time to know you have cancer. bloody big cockroach to one and all, I have a disgusting cough which I am attempting to anaesthetise with . TFIF...

dint first off so sorry about the cats, that is a real kicker and my 3 send miaows of sympathy. Fingers xd for good results.

Re your dad, would he feel better if the carer simply had a key? or if you told him that you had changed the code so that only you and carer knew it?

Dint offering a hug if you want one.

obviously I have no idea about anything...not qualified or experienced in this. but if your dad is talking about it but not visibly stressed, is it possible he's just processing it wrongly and he doesn't mind about it? Dad's 95 year old friend often used to get facts like that wrong and when she had a live in carer, I honestly think she forgot she had a live in carer at moments. But it didn't worry her, or not that we could see.

re life, my experience, since I was a child, was that it never rains but it pours...that has been happening to mum since dad died, so many bits of household stuff has gone wrong at a time when she's least equipped to handle it. I'm just hoping the heating holds up because if that went, it would finish her off I think. Sorry I digress.....so my experience is that life goes through good phases, really good phases and really superlatively shite ones.

sorry if my brain dump was more annoying than anything else.

Thought we'd managed Dad's transition from hospital to home+carers OK, but he's now talking about a carer who is coming in in the evening and sitting in the front room doing his paperwork. He's only having one carer a day, in the morning, plus meals on wheels. So I think he's imagining the evening one because fundamentally having a key safe worries him. Realistically there's no way he could manage at home without a carer, and no way he can get to the door in time to let one in.

So basically I understand he's worried, and he's imagining things as a result. What I don't understand is what to do about it. I'm well out of my depth here.

Also - some of you may know we lost two of our cats suddenly over the course of the weekend back in September, something I'm still struggling with. Well, our third cat has suspected breast cancer and we're awaiting the biopsy result. Is this our life now? It's going to be crap from now on?

wind my mother would have absolutely hated, and been ashamed, of what she became. She wasnt 'her' any more, she was... I dont know.

Dementia is such a cruel process. I honestly think it is the worst thing of all, because I imagine that even if you are very very ill but in possession of your marbles you can at least think, rather than have demons whirling in your head.

Wind that's very accurate isn't it? And sad. The real person would be mortified at the things they latterly do and say, it's very cruel, dementia.

Yolo I think it's perfectly possible to do most of the grieving process whilst a person is still alive especial. When my DF died my overwhelming emotion was relief. Not because I'm cold and heartless but because he was tired, frightens, in pain and living was, for him, a burden not a joy.
I miss him terribly but I'm sure I miss my dad and not the person who died if that makes sense.?

Yolo re your daughters, you are home to them. As long as your home and heart is open to them it truly doesn't matter whether it's a big or small place.

We didn't want this particular bit of equality, can't bloody retire till 67, I'm knackered. I'm just going to get in the box with Dad.

Yolo thank you, so do I. We've all decided there'll be no more hospital, what's the point? Dad's like a dog, he loves walks, exercise and weather.

There's nothing worse than seeing a dog with all kinds of wheels and contraptions strapped to it when it's life has been extended beyond all reason.

Sorry! I see lots of similarities between responsible dog ownership and elder care!

thigh yes, when the happy waggy dog is no longer there, what's the point? and when the dog is sad and tired and in pain - we wouldnt prolong things just 'because'. I am afraid you are right, there is probably only one way to go, and I hope to god it is a calm, peaceful and gentle way for all of you xx

Yolo this world is a strange place and somehow or other it keeps on turning. Death is a kindness at the end of a long, long and unwell old age. The final act of caring for a beloved dog is to spare further pain and zero quality of life.

By the time they are at that stage the happy, waggy dog has been gone a couple of years probably.

I think I'm pre-grieving for Dad now as there's only one way this goes in the end.

OK and here's the thing I couldnt say anywhere else: I am thinking ahead to what if DH dies and what I am going to do. Obvs, that's not what I want, but if that is what is going to happen I need to have some ideas in my head, mostly of how to survive financially and how to still give our children a place they can call home. I am not one of those who thinks well they are 18, its all over to them now, I will still need to have a place they can come to and I would never ever want not to be able to give them that.

paroxetine snort!!!

Iamdanish and lello yep, but sometimes nothing is better than something. I dont miss mum at all, perhaps I miss what she was years ago, but after the last 8-10 years - no. All I think now, is if she knew that DH is ill (which she never did) she would be adding to my mental load with lots of 'good ideas' about how I could make him better, and telling me that our children 'should' be doing this or not doing that or that I was somehow a negligent mother by allowing two young adults to get trains/go to gigs/get pissed/ etc etc. She could worry about the smallest thing.