The new shiny 2019 thread for anyone caring for elderly parents

I'm glad you've said that yolo I just feel... nothing I guess? Sister has had to see a counselor, people keep checking in at Xmas, birthday etc, saying how hard it must be for me. But I'm fine? Feel like there must be something wrong with me sometimes

Yolofish
I totally get you, but imagine the thread
My ddad/dmum just died and I am so relieved
Would not go down well, even though it is because you are worn out, not cold at heart.
But it would be nice with a place to offload and talk about the last months/years.

Anyone else can appreciate the irony of being told the D of E is being a stubborn old man who doesn’t listen?

totally yes to all of the above blue and I am so happy that your mum is doing well at the moment. I dont feel as if I need counselling (not about mum at least!), her death was honestly the best result for HER. And also for me. My brother seems to have taken it very hard, perhaps because his last chance at being the white knight was taken away, who knows?

Yolo I completely get that. When I thought I was going to lose mum back end of last year I spent a lot of time thinking about her death. I could never say that in RL and it does sound an awful thing to recall now that she has recovered so well. But I was wrung out and wanted to get off the merry-go-round of her bloody illness and being pulled this way and that by her constant needs. I'd asked SS for help and got nowhere. And I was so full of resentment and rage at being the only child who was local and to whom everybody looked to for updates, availability to respond to issues at short notice etc. (I am feeling much better now as her 11 week stay in hospital/respite was a much needed respite for me as it was for her!)

Mentally, emotionally and physically we can only carry so much load. You carried the load for a long time, and with little sibling support (from what I remember from your posts).

I think if you went to talk it over with a Cruse bereavement counsellor you'd be surprised at how common what you say is. I'm a registrar and I hear it a lot from families when they accept my condolences that it was actually a relief when they finally passed. I have had enough exposure over the past 12 years with recently bereaved families to say that a lot of our elderly are living too long, with no quality or value to their life and the impact and pressure on the family cannot be underestimated.

oneday its such early days... but not fair of people to add to your load .

blue that all sounds positive about your mum, especially that she wants to go out and see people.

I am beginning to think there is something wrong with me, I'm over on the parent loss thread, and I'm feeling absolutely none of the pain/anguish others seem to be feeling. Maybe I've done it all already, maybe I'm preoccupied with DH, but all I can think is thank god its over for mum, and selfishly, thank god its over for me too. The practical aspects are timeconsuming, sometimes annoying, but basically I have no great feelings. She's gone, she would have been pleased to have gone. So that's it.

Sorry about my bold fail there 🤷🏼‍♀️

Oneday I'm sorry for your loss. I think thigh ** has summed it up recent bereavement beautifully.

Mum has been home a week now. We had the Just Checking WiFi system installed by the council this morning. This is a clever system which will map mums overnight movements over a period of 2 weeks and then they will install sensor mats under her bedsheets and on her armchair which are programmed so that if she fails to return to either the bed or chair after x period of time the alarm company will call through to her via her box to check she hasn't fallen.

She's decided she would like to go to the village friendship club next Tuesday and has asked me to organise some lifts for her via our local timebank scheme so she can go to 2 coffee mornings in February. All good stuff. I'm still working on persuading her that a mobility scooter will open up her world, particularly when her mobility is poor.

Cockroach all

Thanks sandwich work have arranged a counsilling session this week for me. thigh you've put that so eloquently I wish I could just give you my phone

Oneday that's very insensitive of people, phone calls can be so tiring to the bereaved. It's so easy to click into coping mode and appear cold. With an ounce of sense people should realise you don't have the luxury of accessing your emotions yet.

Hope it's still ok to post for a hand hold. I'm mostly doing ok after mum passed but increasingly feel like I'm drowning under what everyone else needs and is feeling.

Mum didn't want a funeral as such, she wanted direct cremation, and some people have, understandably, struggled with this. For context I'm the only one organising everything and dealing with her affairs - with help from dh.

I know I'm still in shock and I'm trying to get through it all as best I can before I fall apart. I've got people calling and getting really upset about different things and telling me I'm being cold and people are upset because of me and I should have done things (insert their opinion).

Part of me wishes I had the time and space to grieve that they have or that they had even the slightest idea how bloody hard all of this is for me. It's almost like because I'm getting on with stuff I'm not in pain.

yay for seeds!

just flagging this up as I will be offline for a while and am about to run out of data...

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/elderly_parents/3486859-can-t-do-it-any-more?watched=1&msgid=84345875#84345875

Grace Today I'm fine, thanks - I've had a day off! Managed to order my seeds for the coming season.

I don't think anyone would have taken your comment as a "who is worse off game". But I think lots of us get swamped by the set of problems we're dealing with, and it can be helpful to be reminded of the different problems that other people are dealing with - helps you "count your blessings" at a time when even seeing any blessings can be difficult.

Dint That SW sounds lovely. How are you today?

I don't mean that comment about a health problem in any kind of "who is worse off" game, but I think it gave mum pause when I reminded her my phone would mostly be off today because of being at the hospital.

speaking of which...from what I can see, hospital in my area so much better than mum's area, as previously said....funny as it's rough here and upmarket where she lives. Could all just be luck of the draw, management etc etc

rather that that helping someone with a health problem is a reminder of the things we are lucky with One of the things I get from this board is that other people have got far worse things to cope with ... somehow makes me feel lucky.

Had a rewarding talk with SW yesterday who finished by gently patting me on the arm and saying "Don't worry, I'll get it sorted, it'll be all right ...don't worry about anything". I didn't think I'd made it that clear I was on a knife edge!

thanks Dint and Monica

that's good to know re post. There are very few records but I'm not worried about sorting the accounts, just that mum is so anxious after things like not passing phone security - she will give herself a heart attack at this rate!

I'm in the hospital today with the elderly family friend mentioned earlier so have only spoken to mum briefly, but I think the fact I'm here looking after the friend has helped put things more in perspective for her That's not me having a go at her for panicking, rather that that helping someone with a health problem is a reminder of the things we are lucky with....hope everyone is well

Sadly dad set up a bunch of stuff for her with building societies that don't have branches nearby, and she just signed and went along with it. Are there no records at all of what was set up? I suppose if he did it all on-line there may be nothing, but I've usually got at least a letter asying "thank you for opening this account" even if I've got into a muddle thereafter.

Reassuring that Monica says it goes smoothly by post.

About banks and building societies - we’ve had similar experiences. In the name of anti-fraud and anti-money laundering they have made their ID checks over the phone very strict. My mother deals with building societies that don’t have local branches by post and that seems to go smoothly. I don’t recall them ever asking for ID because (I suppose) they assume that, if you have the passbook and are asking for it to be returned to the address they hold in their records, it must be legit.

Danish, yes, it makes perfect sense. But she's so anxious at the moment, constant reassurance doesn't help. I think she will only feel better when everything is sorted and that could take months.

She's telling me that she must work on things to feel better but that her anxiety will rise and fall, and I'm finding it difficult to cope with the rises. It's like what thigh says about seeing someone in distress and needing to fix it.

Hi Grace
This may be all wrong, you know your mother, so if this is totally off the mark, just ignore 😀.
When I read your recent update I couldn't help but think that perhaps you ARE both being too protective of each other.
Perhaps you could tell your mother that you have no problem setting all the accounts strait for her to manage thereafter. And emphasize that this wouldn't be stressful for you doing it this way.

I suggest this because I know that when I am "down", I will do everything to make sure my DCs are OK, because if they are not, I find it next to impossible to cope.
If your mother feels the same, she is self-protecting in keeping you "happy", and she might be afraid of causing you anciety as well as you are afraid of causing her anciety.
Does this make any sense? I am sorry I cannot explain it better.

Dint she was asking them to post a statement of what she has.

Sadly dad set up a bunch of stuff for her with building societies that don't have branches nearby, and she just signed and went along with it.

So now she is writing letters, I imagine that their next steps will be to ask her to send two forms of ID?

To us, it's normal life, which is partly why she's so determined to adjust to it, but to her, it's so stressful. She was in tears on the phone to me again today but when I offered to go there today, she said no, she will stick with the arrangement for me to go later this week and she will cope with her anxiety. I keep saying it, but while I do really admire that she wants to do this, I'm not sure how to handle it myself because watching someone go through that anxiety is terrible. I suffer with anxiety but I live alone so no one has to see it!

My experience is that if you phone a financial organisation and can't provide their basic id check info (eg the answer to a "special question" or a password that you're never set up) they grill you about money going into and out of the account until they're convinced you know enough about it to be the account holder. So I suspect that's what's happened.

If she can get into a branch, it may be easier. I regularly go in, wave my passport at them, and then they'll go through with me all the accounts I have and their current balances.

Alternative is to ask them to post to the account holder a statement of balances for all accounts held.

another vent, sorry.

I'm not at mum's at the moment so not sure why this is happening. She is trying to figure out her finances, as you probably all know from my whining!

today she called two organisations and couldn't get through security. The reason she couldn't get through is that she couldn't provide up to date information about what she has with them.

but that's the reason she was calling them in the first place - to get up to date information! She is now trying to write letters and I'm sure the next thing will be that she gets things from them asking for 2 forms of ID etc etc so it will get sorted eventually, but she is so stressed and panicky.

I am quite surprised because I would have thought a lot of elderly folk would be making calls saying "I'm not sure what I have with you" - but presumably they all have to go through this too?

sorry, I'm asking the impossible but I just don't know how to assuage her panic and I can see this going on for months.