Cockroach Cafe - newly refurbished for the summer

Dint I'm more or less settled on the idea of a folding wheelchair because even when I've performed the miracle of hospital parking she can't walk through the endless corridors and I'm relying on the second miracle of a hospital wheelchair. I know that I would make life so much easier for her and for me if I just filled the forms in and bought a wheelchair but it's yet another recognition of decline that I'm struggling to face.

sandwich diagnosis and treatment is changing all the time, you want recent experiences. I don't have any to share, I hope that whatever point you are at things move speedily because the reality is usually not as bad as your imagination tells you at 4am.

exepat thanks….. a possibility……..

Oh no, thesandwich - are you having to deal with a possible cancer diagnosis on top of everything else?

Sympathies, Knot. I had to do the blue badge form for my DF earlier this year. It seemed crazy to have to answer all those questions when really all they needed to know was that he had been disabled and a wheelchair user/blue badge holder for nearly 20 years. And very depressing to have to answer them all and list all his conditions and medications.

We were worried at one stage that because we didn't have any clear paperwork to prove his main disability (arose for complex reasons and such a long time ago) that it would be refused, but luckily it was approved almost instantly.

I'll have to do it all again for my mother in a few months...

Good luck with the form knot. It must be hard to reflect on what has changed. But they are so useful
A question- anyone on here been through breast cancer?

I'm battling the blue badge form, it should be straightforward as she has two chronic conditions and this is the second renewal. Even better, I found the copy of the one we submitted last time round. I still don't want to do it though, it's that listing of all the things she can't do and seeing how much she's deteriorated over three years. I wasn't going to bother doing it as she's no longer driving but the number of hospital appointments is stacking up now. There is a patient drop off zone but no seating anywhere near it. There's no way she can cross the access road and walk into the entrance on her own but nowhere she can sit and wait for me to return from the outer reaches of the galaxy car park

One of the advantages of residential care that I was not aware of is that the doctor visits at least once a week. All the hoops I've jumped through over the last year to get her to "see" a doctor and suddenly it's as simple as "I got him to look at her while he was here".

Hope everyone is doing ok.

Funnily enough mum has been on about going home this afternoon. She thinks she's bags better now, I think she's bored more than anything else. She used to fill her days with pointless work, moving things from A to B, stacking them up, moving them back again and she doesn't have that to do now.

country sounds really poor care. Poor chap.
dot please heed the words of other posters. Both dh’s parents ended up in separate care homes and the family did not attempt to arrange visits back to their house.- too upsetting for all.one stroke, one dementia.
Keep stalling and using covid as an excuse.

Ah, it's very instructive that you both say don't take DM to her house Dint and Knot. It's enough to make me knock that idea on the head. I suppose I thought I ought to as she said she wanted to and we did leave in such a hurry, she had no time to say goodbye, plus I'm staying there. But you're right, it won't do any good and I hadn't thought the practicalities through anyway. It's possible to kick all cans down the road 'because of Covid' at the moment anyway but a genuine issue is whether she could actually get in (she uses a frame, but left in a chair in a community ambulance - and she has come outside in a chair on most of my visits 'for safety' although she can walk some way). I will divert that topic. At some point I would like to take her to a nearby favourite spot for a short picnic or something (transport is complicated) but for now I hope we can sit in the (nice) grounds of the home where I have to be kitted up like some character in Handmaid's Tale. I won't try and rush anything but you're right, it's a bad idea to go home.

Dint maybe my family is the only one to call shoes, slippers etc. 'pods' .

I hope your MIL's situation gets better (for you too) Knot. I'm throwing (her) money at my DM's empty house: gardener, cleaner (insurance) and others keeping an eye while it does nothing - it'll have to be sold when I can get organised, probs not til next year though.

Countrygirl that's grim, I know hospitals are stretched but the neglect and poor communication are upsetting.

Dad came home that evening after having a brain scan "as he was confused". No shit - he has stage 4 heart failure, confusion goes with the territory.
DB got a call tea time asking if he could pick him up as they couldn't arrange transport and was all ready to go. So DB dropped everything and drove 30 mins to the hospital only to have to wait an hour. He was raging as they managed to lose dad's shoes (due to oedema he has 1 pair that fit) and, despite him asking for help, had neither helped him get up to go to the loo or brought him a bottle so he had wet himself and then they just left him like that. We are seriously unimpressed with the hospital. Last time he was in I struggled to get a nurse to understand that my mum's dementia means she doesn't remember things so they need to talk to me or DB. It took all my willpower not to say "you are a nurse, if you can't understand this you aren't fit to do the job."

Dot I am deaf to all suggestions of going "home". When she was there she didn't recognise it as hers, she thought she was in a day centre and was ringing me up to complain about the lack of staff or for me to come and take her home. It was distressing for both of us but there's only one of us that remembers it now. I can't see what would be achieved by it, can't you have a trip out to a National Trust place instead? Tea and scones and no upset.

I'm also attempting to keep up with mum's garden, hampered by the garden waste collection being suspended due to covid. I stand on the pavement and decide which bits look worst and do those first.

MIL has finally chalked up enough falls (the last few during the night) for her to not be returning home from hospital. Since Easter she's had probably eight hospital admissions after falls totalling maybe seven weeks in hospital while they tweak her medication. This time she's being discharged to a care home for assessment. Personally I think this is about seven months overdue but what do I know? I'm hoping that she's in isolation for ten days because she might have calmed down by the time I get to see her.

Hope your DF is OK countrygirl

Hairbrush that sounds like progress! Your DM sounds like she's railing as a lot of people in her position do because they can't control their environment but it's the reality of the amount of care she needs and hopefully you'll be able to get a long-term care she can be OK with. It's necessary, regardless.

I'm still decompressing after the pandemic period with DM's needs being shouted at me from hundreds of miles away and me having to keep her in my head all the time and run down there on mercy missions. I'm still not used to not having to phone her three times a week and listen to the negative outpouring. I gave her a mobile in her care home but she gave it me back because she can't work it. The silence is bliss. I don't mind whether she wants to talk to me or not - I know she's safe and there are lots of people round her in a nice environment and I know she's capable of saying things are bad against all the evidence and I just don't want to hear it. She told me a couple of stories when I last visited which were untrue (I checked) and admitted one wasn't true when I offered to talk to the care home about it. Lordy.

I'm going down in a couple of weeks to stay for a while in the area so I can sort out some things which will take multiple visits to her. I'll propose to her that we have some sort of Facetime catch up (just one!) in-between monthly visits but a staff member will need to basically do it for her. She might not want to and that would be fine with me.

When I last saw her she seemed accepting, and at least I think she feels relief to have that level of care at the home, well, specifically that level of attention. I keep looking back and seeing how much effort I've made over the last couple of years especially and how it's been accepted by her as the very least I could do.

I'm in the middle of dealing with all the new things that need to be organised, one decision that looms is what to do with her house eventually. I'm keeping it ticking over, which isn't straightforward, but I haven't the energy to do anything else, at least I've got someone to help look after it.

My list of stuff to do aside from wrangle all her finances and bills and plod on with multiple registrations of the PoA with banks is to lug down a shoe-shop full of selections of old lady pods for her to try in the hope some fit, write to the oldies from the activity club who used to call her to tell them where she is now, get a selection of things together she might find useful at the home (photos, cushions, smellies) and contemplate taking her to visit her house in a taxi. I am slightly scared of this - I have nightmares of her plonking herself on the sofa and refusing to go back to the care home.

On the plus side DH now realises how bad she gets when dad is in hospital. I'm pretty sure he thought I was exaggerating as she is always at her best for his infrequent visits.

Mum phoned before breakfast this morning to tell me she called the ambulance again after dad had yet another fall and they have taken him to hospital. I didn't ask what time but she told my SIL "this afternoon". Can't have been yesterday as we were there all afternoon so wehave no idea. She has since phoned DH twice to tell me that he is in hospital and that he us still in a&e and it's terrible he has been there so long. The most likely scenario is the paramedics got to the house about 6ish and its a 30 minute drive to the hospital so he has probably been there 3-4 hours by now.

@notaflyingmonkey I am so glad I am an only child!

I saw mum on Saturday and as expected she was so very miserable. She was complaining that she was missing my son's graduation "because I'm stuck in here". No, it's because we are going away without her. The family liaison team have suggested that we can Facetime her so we will do that from the university and she can chat to him in his gown.

I feel so sad for her - the lady I visit every week isn't my mum - my mum was always bright and friendly and never had a bad word to say to about anyone. Now she just complains that she is being treated badly by everyone. Everyone else has visitors all the time etc. No one speaks to her. The nurses don't come when she calls. She is so very lonely. Why did I make her go to hospital? We were managing fine as we were! Yes mum, so fine I ended up in A&E from the stress of it all!

DM: I'll need you to make an appointment with a chiropodist for me. Your brother spotted right away I need my feet looking at, he's so caring.

Me: Maybe he can make the appointment then?

DM: Don't be silly, he works.

Again, my mother talked at first about getting a live-in companion, but when it came to it, did nothing to make it happen. A lovely-sounding retired nurse had put a card in the newsagent’s window, offering to act as a daily companion/carer, but my mother refused even to call her. I think the key here can (sometimes) be separating what they say and what they mean. In my mother’s case, what she often means is that she’s lonely and wants more company, even though she rejects opportunities to meet people because they’re not the ‘right’ opportunities or the ‘right’ people.

My mum completely wore the trousers...managed the finances and the household, did the DIY, cooking, cleaning, gardening, driving and car maintenance.

My dad helped out with housework and gardening and was occasionally allowed into the kitchen to cook (mum hates cooking, he loved it but she wouldn't allow anyone to create any mess ).

She never lived alone so is basically just desperate for the presence of another person 24/7.

She keeps talking about getting a live in companion I assume the subtext there is 'if you won't move in with me I'll spend your inheritance. Honestly though I think that would drive her nuts.

She messaged someone on Widows Online Dating last night so perhaps he'll come up trumps...

MrsSchadenfreude - Yes (or should I say ja?) something else that my mother has not been able to adjust to is that there hasn't always been someone to step in to do the things that my father used to do.

@MintyCedric and @TalesOfDrunkennessAndCruelty my Mum was the same re Cruse. She “didn’t want to talk to a load of old widows.” And she did nothing on her own, my Dad did absolutely everything, including drying her when she got out of the bath.

She got the Covid test yesterday, but hasn’t done it yet and was fretting about where to post it. The nearest special post box is about a mile away. I told her just to stick it in the nearest one as she can’t walk far. They don’t make this easy for old people.

Minty - My mother used to give very similar reasons for not going to bereavement counselling or not joining any of the many groups and classes nearby. Her arguments were always "it won't bring him back" or "I'll still have to come home to an empty house". She couldn't or wouldn't see that counselling might perhaps have helped her get through the early months (and near us, it's run as a group, so she'd have met other newly-bereaved people).