The Cockroach cafe -new look for spring 2021

Welcome go
Hope all are as ok as possible and the hosp stays are giving some respite( knot and hairbrush)
minty I assume it’s. L coming? If so, could you focus on seeing it as support for your mum so you can think about yourself and your dd?

Epic poem BTW

nota I hope you get seen quickly and they are able to get to the bottom of things and put your mind at rest.

Hope everyone else is getting on okay...I'm not very good with keeping up atm.

Dad's Orders of Service arrived yesterday - only half as many as I though I'd ordered but just about enough. Another box arrived today so we have the total I thought I'd ordered but God knows how I managed that.

I've managed to get the house under control and had a fairly relaxing couple of days, although I think I've pushed Friday to a dark corner of my brain on the whole.

Just had a call from mum who has got into a pickle trying to remove Dad's name from their joint accounts. The kind lady at the bank has sent her emails with the instruction not to open them until I'm there to help out as mum couldn't remember her.mobile number so has had to give them mine .

Mum was high flying PA back in the day so her struggling to deal with this stuff is scary as well as frustrating.

Oh, and guess who is coming to the funeral...?

As my mate Claire says to me @gonow.... what would happen if you didn't?

Maybe we should start a separate thread for Learning To Say No. See also, definitely-nope, no chance, not happening, and NO!

Wow. Just found this thread. It's sad but comforting to find so many people living through the same issues day in day out. Saying no. It's something I'm getting better at, but is only a recent development for me. Also, thanking people. I find I'm constantly thanking people for doing things for mum. As if all the jobs should be mine to do and I'm being done a favour if I don't do them for her.

counselling-matters.org.uk/angelas-word/

Quick name change as yes my name is Angela! Great poem

It was the prospect of night calls that was in my mind MrsRussell. It was one of the first times I said no, at the time I had my hands full with mum and that made it easier to decline taking on MIL's care. I thought her family needed to see how unsafe she was and one of the ways of doing that was to have them acknowledge the fall calls. It's made them aware that she's confusing night and day (I told them but it's not the same as being woken at 3am because she fell getting dressed) and a few other issues. It's easy to ignore things you don't want to deal with but becomes more of a priority when you lose sleep to it.

Absolutely do not be that contact number Knot I am (basically because she literally hasn't got anybody else...now that raises questions, doesn't it?) and they thought nothing of ringing me in the early hours and asking me to go round and see if she was all right.
And what, pray, do you think I'm going to do if she isn't? That's right! I'm going to RING AN AMBULANCE! So why don't we cut out the middle man and do that in the first instance?

Appreciate they're busy too but really....use some common sense here, eh?

MrsRussell I was brought up to put myself last, it was a revelation when I found out that it was not my job to make everyone else happy. I wish I'd found that out decades earlier. I am a work in progress but I'm getting better at not sacrificing myself for someone else's convenience (so, no I won't be the contact number on MIL's fall alarm)

Hairbrush Is your mum medically fit for discharge? In my (limited) experience nothing happens until then. At the moment MIL is fit for discharge but sitting in hospital until they've sorted her care package out, she's been in nearly two weeks so her previous carers are now elsewhere. It's not going to be your problem to arrange care, the hospital social worker assigned will sort it all out. They get paid to do it, they do it every day. This is the first step in letting things be someone else's problem.

If your mother did have full time support it wouldn't be one person. There would be a team because each individual is entitled to some down time and their own lives. As family, should we not be entitled to that as a minimum?

Am a bit mystified here hairbrush.
How are you supposed to know when she needs to pee, or have you got a magic alarm that means you can drop everything right that minute?

I was thinking about you last night, there's a poem in one of the early Chicken Soup For The Soul books about a woman who suddenly wakes up in her middle years and starts saying no, and everybody thinks she's gone absolutely crackers because she's always been so obliging and kind.... I think that's me and you.
Here we go, this is it. It absolutely blew me away the first time I read this.
counselling-matters.org.uk/angelas-word/

The last time I told mum her washing was on the line she asked me to be sure to put it in the tumble dryer afterwards to air because it might still be damp afterwards. I didn't.

I rang the care company today and they have heard nothing from the hospital or council about mum's needs. If she does not come home within a week she will be off their books. In any event they do not have the space to provide another two visits a day for her. It's not my problem as such but it will be my problem when she has to be cared for by a whole lot of new carers all because "her daughter is too lazy to take her to the toilet a couple of times a day!"

@notaflyingmonkey I hope you get good news from your appointment.

Thanks - I'm sure it's nothing, but I keep falling over - while out walking on perfectly even pavements, sober. (There is Huntingdon's in my family, so hard not to dwell on the maybes). We shall see what comes of it.

nota everything crossed for you- so glad you are being referred.

Bloody hell Notaflyingmonkey I hope it's not anything significant. I hate that bollox that makes other people's crises all about MEEEEEE.
You can come and put a glamping tent up in my garden and watch the dragonflies shagging on the pond.

I just had a really sweet message from a friend just to say that mum's messaging is not what people do when they're stable. The which I knew anyway, but we've now arranged to go for coffee next year and I think that's made both of us happy. (Not a typo, she lives at the other end of the country so the chances of us being able to book a holiday there this summer now are somewhere between Bob Hope and No Hope....)

DM's GP just phoned to chase up why I hadn't taken her for the blood test they want her to have. I managed to let them get to the district nurse going to her house to do it option, and cheerily said 'great, thank, bye!'. Teflon coating on (despite being swelteringly hot here).

I had a phone appointment myself with my GP today, which turned into a face to face appointment, which has turned into a referral to a neurologist.

If it transpires I have got something dodgy going on, there is no way I'm going to be hanging around listening to her telling everyone how hard it is for her to lose another child, I'll cash in my meagre savings and fuck off somewhere where the vodka is cheap and the sun always shines.

Hope your son is okay MereDint and it's just a formality.

Someone called from the hospital and said she was being discharged and I said, "oh that's good!" - I don't think they were expecting that. "How is she getting home?"
Errrrr.... we think someone is booking volunteer transport for her....."Ah, that's brilliant, thanks for letting me know, bye!"

Interesting given the timing of the phone calls over the weekend, that the hospital couldn't actually find anything physically wrong other than alcohol withdrawal. It's almost ... I dunno.... like a tantrum? "If you don't PAY ME ATTENTION I'm going to TELL ON YOU that I'm being NEGLECTED by my BAD DAUGHTER!"
Yeah right, next please.

Have a lovely walk - I've put some laundry on the line, a thing I love doing, and watched a really inordinate number of dragonflies humping on my pond. I don't know what it is with that pond but it's like some kind of dragonfly orgy goin' on out there.

Getting a bit chilly now so I'm back in!
They're only discharging the bloody woman tonight!!!!

to mrsR. Your post made me so sad for you. Enjoy your bbq.

Puts on chart, with satisfaction.
We're having a barbecure with DS currently so he is definitely living his best life today - which is absolutely as it should be. He gets spoilt when she acts up, as a reward to that little girl of 40 years ago that nobody saw. He gets what I never did.

Hope everyone else is having as good a day as possible under the circumstances, whatever they may be.

to MrsR

Sorry your predictions were so accurate, MrsRussell. Hope you can stand firm, not get sucked in and give your DS all the attention he deserves at the moment.

Thanks for all the condolences on my DF. I really still feel nothing but relief - I have dealt with the deaths of my husband (41) and my sister (51), and this is the only death that has felt like it came at the right time, or if anything was overdue.

Just a 50 year old woman who's supposed to ring mummy and let her know she's home safe every time she goes out.

I have had to clamp down on this as well. I have always been a very independent, self-contained person, and spent a large portion of my adult life overseas, speaking or writing to my parents at most once a week. As soon as I was widowed and moved back to the UK, my mother started calling me every night at bed time to make sure I was still alive...

I only managed to wean her off it once my (now ex) DP moved in, and have since managed to ward off her attempts to get back into knowing exactly where I am and what I am doing at all times, even though I no longer have a protective male in the house .

If I let her get into the habit of expecting daily calls, she panics if I am not there, so not letting her develop expectations is better all round. I am now not afraid to point out that her anxieties and catastrophising are totally irrational and I am not going to pander to them, and she seems to accept that.

Sorry MrsRussell. I started writing my message ages ago then finished it and hit send before refreshing and seeing your update. Is she on her way to hospital?