The second new shiny 2019 thread ...

thanks so much to everyone who has replied

thigh glad to hear your dad is feeling better.

Cherry we aren't short of stuff to do if you see what I mean - just sometimes I feel horrendous when I'm there.

Whatever I think it was probably a depressing house for a long time, but I was able to just ignore it. As long as two of them could support each other, I didn't have to be there much.

Dint I agree I'm lucky to get my socialising without a huge amount of people, don't get lonely etc. However, I think part of the problem is that helping mum is using up all my "spoons". Not just the emotional ones - the travelling takes a toll on me as well as the general emotional looking after and being around for chat.

Much as I love MN I do have friends IRL who I don't feel motivated to see, because I'm out of spoons. Even before all this happened, sometimes I'd fix a date with them and wish I hadn't, because life, introversion, A&D use all the spoons just in daily life!

I am in that space where I have to delude myself, I think, or how will I cope? I have to keep telling myself it will be okay.

I do wish I had a crystal ball.

I've got a Buddhist book here and I'm thinking I need some kind of book that has nice Buddhist teachings about the specifics of elderly parents rather than general stuff about compassion. Must be a marketing opportunity there!

Just checking in. thigh thank you.... really appreciated.feeling more toasted than cooked at present. Laid low with an infection myself at the mo- nothing major compared with what you folk are dealing with but leaving me feeling crap and trying to conceal it from dm as cant stand the fuss.
I cannot take credit for starting these threads- @ssd was the founder and many more have carried the baton sadly.
So sorry for all the hassle everyone is handling- things with dm are relatively calm but I can see how tough it is for so many of you.
cockroach all.

Dad's physical health has stabilised i think. He is on the rounds now of the community matron and the heart failure nurse. They're very good and we have tinkered with all his meds to what I think is being therapeutic. Just need to up the memantine to see if we can get rid of some of the gaga.

I need to send back the rented wheelchair and buy a second hand one. Just the thought of packing up the wheelchair and contacting the hire company seems insurmountable. Little things are very hard.

sandwich you're always so lovely, as thread maker you get overlooked. Thank you for everything. Btw text predict nearly said you were overcooked then.

Is it a criticism of me for being divorced or not having enough siblings?

Yep...I know that feeling. No DH, no siblings, no local family. I'm sure every time I make this point other people think I'm being a drama llama...they just don't have a fucking clue.

NB I do appreciate siblings can be a hindrance too.

I was also told by a manager a couple of weeks after my dad's accident that I should welcome the chance to be at work and take my mind off things !

Sending all the and ((hugs)) o everyone in need today.

Someone i give work to is being a massive bitch about my lack of presence atm. I am working but not as much as normal and it's been 5 months since Dad had his catastrophic hospital adventure. Oh btw Yolo only found out last week it was a heart attack - wtaf.

I understand that she needs me to feed her work and I'm trying. But don't be a cow about it. She said - I've been through the elderly parents thing too but i have 3 siblings and they all have spouses as do i and we got on with it.

What does that mean? Is it a criticism of me for being divorced or not having enough siblings?

Otoh of course I want Dad to live forever but I can't live in God's waiting room for the next 5 years. If i knew for sure he had 2 months i would abandon everything and glue myself to him and tell everyone to get fucked. If it's 5 years i can't do that. I do and don't wish I had a crystal ball.

Grace like me, you're a dyed in the wool introvert. I am sociable but need a lot of quiet time. Maybe you are over estimating your mum's emotional needs. I think when i lose Dad I'll want to be alone for a while rather than be supported.

Yolo if you strip all the bullshit, arse covering and wanky apologies can you figure out what they're saying? Why didn't they tell you about the pneu - is that what pisses you off most?

Hi all, lots to catch up on with everyone. Yolo just wanted to say that from what I remember you and I were struggling with our DM's at around the same time last year. Mine passed away during a time when I had gone non contact as I just needed space from her. Of course if I knew what I knew now it would have been different and of course I have really struggled with how things ended .. but... I know I did what I needed to do at the time. It wasn't a rash decision, it was a careful consideration of my own health and the needs of my own family. We can only do what we can do.
Grace what you said makes total sense. Your idea that it's like visiting another planet is so true! Also the atmosphere in the house. My parents house is now up for sale and it just looks so sad and tired and yet for years it was a happy busy home with so much going on. So many of us totally understand how you are feeling.

Welcome Pipersouth I so recognise that feeling of wanting to help but not finding the right way to do so.

One of the most frustrating things I find dealing with my, or rather out elderlies, is that they routinely reject suggestions which seem pretty routine to me and yet, for reasons that remain unfathomable, are just not acceptable to the elderlies.

I have trained myself to suggest anything only once during any one visit and do anything they ask for. It also seems to help if you can warm up everyone who interacts to make the same suggestions.

Sometimes they pick up on a suggestion , just when I have finally given up.

Sorry if that isn't the sort of answer you were looking for. For me, it helps to know that it's them, not us. Hope it works for you, too.

Grace - I feel a similar burden, and it's so Hotel California. What has helped a bit for me and my DM is ... scrabble! My mum and I were never that close and the conversation doesn't flow (plus she's deaf and has cognitive decline so...) but she loves a good game of scrabble. That's our regular thing now. Once a week I go round, make lunch, do a bit of cleaning, and we have a nice game of scrabble with coffee and biscuits. Then I see her one other evening (unless she's poorly, which is often 😱.
We both enjoy it. That's my boundary - twice a week. I'm not going there every day, I couldn't.

Piper welcome along, someone with more brains that I have will be along to help soon, I’m sure!

Yolo – I am not an expert by any stretch, but the fact that no one mentioned the bronchopneumonia suggests to me that maybe they never knew she had it? Is there any chance your mum had it without showing any symptoms? I don’t know what the difference is but when I had regular pneumonia, the doctor mentioned to me that lots of people don’t realise they have it, or it takes weeks before they realise something is wrong and get to the doc at all.

Thank you for your kind words. You are right…there is no road map for this but that’s what I find frustrating and upsetting. I – perhaps stupidly – never thought about the emotional road map of my life having to include someone else. Yes, life throws curve balls but normally it's just me, catching the ball for me, and deciding how I will cope with it and it doesn't affect anyone else. How I miss that life!

Re socialising, my mum is doing this but she’s not enjoying it. I think she mostly does it because she is aware that she must have people other than me who can help out in future if she needs it. Interestingly I think her personality might be more like mine – but because she followed dad’s social life for 60 years, her introversion didn’t really come out, or she didn’t mind going out because she was with him, maybe.

She is also managing the practicalities quite well now.
I wish I could work out why some visits are fine and some aren’t.

And she looked at me sadly and said "the problem is me, isn't it?"

The thing is, it's not her, it's not you, it's the situation. She's lost her husband, you've lost your dad. They are completely different relationships and no one gives you a map on how to negotiate them, or how to negotiate between the two if you see what I mean.

It also sounds to me as if you are a solitary, independent person, while your mum has always relied on your dad and is now looking to you (even if she's trying hard not to I think it will be in the back of her mind that grace is always there). So reconciling those two is always going to be a difficult thing.

To me, you sound as if you are always doing your absolute best for your mum - which is bloody exhausting and you can't be expected to carry everything for ever. I'm sure you've said before, but does she have friends/church/social activities etc? I know you've done brilliantly with the practicalities, but the emotional side is a toughie.

Hugs and , not sure if I'm making sense as so pissed off with hospital letter but taking Ddog out to beach now which will clear my brain - just didnt want you to feel you were unheard.

and sorry about no bloody paragraphs in mine!!

God sorry grace crossposted. Let me go back and read yours.

Had a 4 page letter from our local trust, in relation to mum's treatment/death. It is quite a remarkable fudge - lots of apologies, but very little recognition of some actual facts. And a blame-passing! Eg, mum was moved to a women's health ward when they thought she had noro, and a private room was available there but not on orthopaedics ward. The staff on that ward told me she should be on the previous ward "as that's where the doctors are" and that they couldnt call a different consultant to discuss pain/hideous aspect of her arm when her consultant was out of the place as not etiquette. This apparently all the fault of the nurses on the ward... who couldnt be expected to cope with a broken humerus because they are a gynae ward. Need to photocopy it and go through with fine toothcomb before sending to DB (who is shit hot on this kind of stuff), but honestly, the amount of backcovering going on is not hidden by all the condolences they express. Apparently we can meet with nursing staff or take it to the health care ombudsman next. Meeting with nursing staff would be useless I think, we'd get more cover ups and DB would explode which would potentially be very nasty. And in all the four pages, not a mention that no one told us she had bronchopneumonia (official cause of death). TBF they weren't expecting her to die, but even with DH cancer if I'd known she had that I would have gone and sat with her - she was so bloody frail the slightest breeze could have taken her away. As it is none of us was there for the last 3 weeks or so before she died which makes me feel bad... DB was back in Devon, I was dealing with DH and kids' reaction etc, and she was so demented and frightened I didnt think me going made her any better. Had I known though, I would have gone and done the right thing.

thigh ach, I feel for you and your dad.

minty glad that went well.

Dint you have a SCYTHE? Anyone else thinking what I'm thinking?!

okay, I have some stuff to say and it probably won't make a huge amount of sense....following my post on here about how it's all so depressing, I managed to burst into tears for no reason again while at mum's. She is not stupid; she knows this isn't about dad any more. And she looked at me sadly and said "the problem is me, isn't it?"

of course I said it wasn't.

it's not terrible every visit. Some visits are fine. I suppose it depends how I find her, and her mood, and I've said before that she radiates sadness sometimes in spite of trying to be cheerful for me.

I just can't work out the best way forward. There is no rhyme or reason to feeling terrible and when or why it happens. I was trying to figure it out last night and I realise that to a large extent, because I was there a lot less before dad got ill, I just didn't notice the general depressing tone of the place. He himself commented about getting older and how depressing the conversations with friends in his age group can be.

Also, some of it is definitely me - I didn't want to get married and have children, I've never been interested in being close to someone. Some of the conversations mum has are absolutely just normal chit chat that you'd have daily with people - I used to put earphones in at work to avoid these sorts of conversations!

I need to learn to be more tolerant but I don't know how.

Also some days, like yesterday - I arrived feeling perfectly cheerful and as soon as I step in the door I feel depressed.

we ran a bunch of errands yesterday and mum sent me on ahead saying "you will get xyz done in a third of the time, so I will meet you back at so and so".

Agree, and that's fine. But it makes me stop and think OMD please don't let me get that old. I feel as if this situation is massively ageing me. I try not to think about her when I'm not there, but in some ways I think that makes it worse - like I arrive there, it's another planet and a planet I don't want to be on.

that was a long selfish rant, sorry. I just didn't think I could share this with anyone else. I also can't believe that my relationship with my lovely mother now feels like such a burden.

oh my lovely thigh that's so hard and I do feel for you. I am so relieved mum went when she did, she was batshit and terrified. Batshit on its own maybe ok (although hard for those of you listening) but the fear mum went through...I wouldnt wish it on anyone, not even bloody Teresa May!

PS I frequently call my children by the dog's name... or the dog by the childrens' names...

Dad would have been so disappointed with Brexit, it's a good job he's batshit gaga now.

I reassured him yesterday that the abolition of hanging was still in place. He asked me whether I'd like to have more children with my son and calls my sister by my dog's name.

dint I can hardly believe I am saying this, to you of all people, but you disappoint me!! thigh yes and I have a ride on mower too - need to get petrol for it before we all brexshit etc. I am on a garden mission at the moment - was on the same this time last year then it all went tits up with mum, determined 2019 will not beat me!