Cockroach Cafe - newly refurbished for the summer

Un-Mumsnetty hugs to all this murky morning.
Found out last night that we lost our 80 year old Scout top dog, a woman who I loved very much and who for some bizarre reason was very fond of me. The last time I saw her she was talking to me about moving up to be a warranted Scout leader. So....I guess that's what I'll do salutes Akela
Bored of the whole situation re my own mother, so disengaging from the discharge process altogether. Very much a "and you can't make me so ner" kind of thing. Release her, do not release her, I am simply all out of caring now....

@Opal8 I hope you have some positive news and action soon and that your work are sympathetic.

Ditto all those who are struggling with elderlies in homes or trying to sort them out.

And the guilt...it's awful. Although I'm currently at point where I feel guilty about not feeling guilty .

Day 'off' today although I'm doing a course via Zoom this week.

Spoke to mum.this evening...yet more hysterics over L. She's decided not to see him anymore (again) and apparently felt so awful.she went out in the car with intention of driving into a wall and killing herself.

Honestly I just feel numb about the whole bloody circus tbh.

Oh the guilt at the unhappiness. It's so hard . The nursing home that I've focused on getting my mum into has just turned her down for a private admission because she doesn't have enough money. I can't be sure how much she has because the fund managers are sitting on the power of attorney and not giving me access, so I guessed and it ages her a bad financial risk. It's possible they've done her a favour as it was always going to be a worry if she could afford it longer term. Back to social services and now I would take absolutely anywhere just to get her out of hospital- which is dangerous.

Im so exhausted and Mum is so miserable and it just goes on and on. No wonder there are no beds in hospitals.

Hairbrush don’t let the guilt overwhelm you. You can’t always put your mums well-being and wishes first over yours. At least that what DH tells me.

We were away last week and I thought DM was so much better when we got back. I spent Sunday afternoon with her and an hour yesterday and it was lovely. She was cheerful, had been out with friends for lunch, had had her hair done and said her hip was much better (she had a fall about a month ago and was in real pain before I went away).

About 6pm tonight she rings. ‘Where are you? I haven’t seen anyone for ages. Where are my children? You always visit at the weekend.’

I had been thinking that maybe I needed to visit less often - I go every other day at least and I try to time it so that I visit on days my brother doesn’t so she has someone there every day. But if she can’t remember whether I’ve been there or not I’m not sure it helps.

Hairbrush Steel yourself and think of her as a small child wanting a pony. We can't always have what we want, realising that is part of growing up. It's not your job to make her happy, she now has a life of her own with lots of people around her and hopefully some activities. It has the potential to be a more rewarding life than the one she had, which wasn't packed with excitement and family members whatever she thinks.

She might be different again the next time you see her, you may spend a week worrying about this when she was distracted in an hour. She wasn't happy or safe at home, at least now she's safe so it is an improvement.

Oh hairbrush sending a big hug🌺🌺🌺.
Please try not to feel guilty- she will be grieving for a life that’s gone, and you have sacrificed so much for her.
No one can turn back time. Do I recall you were seeing a counsellor? Could they help?

Hi everyone - @Opal8 I hope you're mum is being cared for appropriately and it hasn't messed up your new job.

I went to visit mum on Monday and she was all tears and upset. She hates the home, hates not having visitors and wants to be at home with her family. i.e. me!

Just a week or so before she went into hospital when I was with her for hours every day she would sit with her head in her hands saying how lonely and fed up she was so I really don't think the home is much worse but oh the guilt!

As my cousin pointed out on Monday night she is wanting a situation that is long gone - she wants to be surrounded by her (my) family but they have all grown up and gone - although they are all keen to see her when they are home. My oldest came home a couple of weeks ago specifically so we could visit her together and my daughter is doing the same next week. My middle daughter lives locally and she and her husband visit every week.

I feel heartbroken that her last months/years are going to be so unhappy and I am powerless to help her. Money is an issue but even if it wasn't there is no way she can go home to her caravan and no way she can move in to our house. For the first time since we started planning for to move to a home I am overwhelmed by guilt.

Hi 👋
Nn changer here. Was on the thread a while ago. Sorry to see so many of us are still having issues.
Well.
1st day of new job and I'm in a&e waiting for mum to be triaged.
She's been waiting an hour in the ambulance but is in the department now.
I'm in a waiting room with a coked up alcoholic so it's all good fun.
Mums been going downhill since getting sepsis back in August (due to pyelonephritis as Dr's refused to see her f2f so didn't do her obs...)
She was at the Dr's last Monday with left arm pain, going up into her neck which was dx as "muscular"
And here we are a week later and he's had an abnormal ecg
I'm so tired of fighting to get her seen/decent treatment.

Update: I have had SIX missed calls on my mobile (which I ask people not to use as I get eff-all reliable signal at home) from her GP.
They haven't phoned the landline, as I requested, and they haven't texted, as the receptionist said she would do, and they haven't left a voicemail.

So I have no way of contacting them back. Even if I wanted to.

In these modern times you are supposed to be able to give authority for organisations to inspect the LPA online and do away with the transfer of paper altogether. So far I've only found one place that would do that and then only if there were no specific instructions listed.

Exexpat they are supposed to check that it has the embossed corners that indicates it's the real deal which they can't do from a copy.

I am feeling a lot calmer this afternoon, I've been anxious since chasing the ambulance last Tuesday and I'm hoping I might get some sleep tonight. It's been totally irrational but telling myself that didn't make it any better.

If the owner of the LPA is of sound mind they can certify a copy themselves - you can buy a stamp with the wording for each page. We left it too late unfortunately.

The other option if anyone insists on a physical copy of the LPA might be to get certified copies done by a solicitor or accountant, so you have multiple ones to send out? You'd have to pay but it might be worth it.

@permanenttemporary Have you tried offering to send people a PDF of the LPA? I have never actually had to send a physical copy of ours, even when I was arranging to have access to DF's bank account, it was all done by email with scans.

The first time I had to do it I just took pics of all the pages on my phone, which worked but wasn't great quality, so next time I scanned the LPAs at home, then combined all the scan jpegs into one document and turned it into a medium-resolution PDF so it is not too big a file to attach to an email; I now have DM's LPA saved on my laptop and my phone so I can easily send it out to anyone who needs it.

etc to all those who need them. It sounds like a lot of you do...

I've been absent from the cafe for so long that I dropped off the thread. The big development here is that DM has been offered a sheltered flat in the lovely complex I have had in mind for her for ages. She doesn't want to move but accepts that she needs to. Luckily in a way the flat won't be ready until after Christmas so she will have one last Christmas in the family house, and with any luck it might be more 'normal' than last year, despite the absence of DF.

This means we can now get on with the decluttering and house-clearing process, as once she has moved out and I have finished dealing with DF's probate, the house and most of the contents will need to be sold.

Oh @MrsRussell and @PermanentTemporary you are really going through it. Chocolate and gin to you.
@Knotaknitter that’s rubbish re glasses and other stuff. When dm was in respite she never forgave me that her smelling salts went missing……. Now an illegal substance😮.
Still keeping a low profile here as I recover from op. Doing well but need to nap!!!

Knota if you can afford to, order one or two extra pairs glasses and ask they mark her name on the frame. Always multiple glasses snatchers in every home we’ve ever been @PermanentTemporary @MrsRussell hang on in there. It has to get v dark and difficult before it gets better. My six stone DM slapped a junior doctor according to a nurse. Now all she does is kiss people and hold their hands.

Well, when DM was first hospitalised (old-school locked ward, back in the 80s) her stuff was being nicked by other patients, if it was nice.
I imagine she's had her own back since, but I am feeling grumpy and cynical since I've had four calls at work from her GP wanting me to come home and sort her bedding out.
Errrrr..... no. Still no. No for the third and fourth time.

Goodness @Knotaknitter where does this stuff go?? Dm lost a nice jumper at the last nursing home,.she was there about 48 hours

Chocolate and drinks for all who need them, @PermanentTemporary and @MrsRussell being first in the line. Poop in carpet was the point where I said that something had to be done and that I wasn't prepared to hold up the house of cards any more for the inlaws.

So far I've only had to part with the PoA once, the pension people promised they would send it straight back - it was gone just over two weeks. I've had two strange letters regarding attendance allowance this week, they can only have been triggered by a letter I sent about mum's change in circumstance some three months ago. It's taken three months to get a response and they now want me to send them the LPA? With a response time like that they can dream on. There's an option to take it into a JobCentre Plus and have them copy it and say they saw the original and that's the option I'll be going with. No way am I parting with it unless there is no other choice.

It's been a rough week, mum moved into nursing care today. I need to go shopping to replace all the things that were missing from her suitcase, I suppose there might be things still in the wash in the previous home but that doesn't include her slippers, washbag and glasses.

Oh blimey @PermanentTemporary and @MrsRussell.

I really hope the week pans out more smoothly for you both than it's started.

Not much to report here, so I feel a bit of a fraud. Last two visits to mum were a bit more positive. I'm just trying to juggle a full time (online) business startup course this week, with seeing her on the usual schedule.

Unfortnately her friends that often visit on Tuesday, thus buying me an extra day at home, are away this week, but if that's all I've got to complain about, I'll take it!

Bloody hell @PermanentTemporary that sounds hard.

At least mine's only a biohazard! (This is what gives me the rage - if someone shit themselves in my workplace, it would be declared a H&S incident and we would call in professional cleaners, full-on hazardous material job. Obviously because we're just "family" there's some magic thing whereby her bodily fluids aren't going to be as hazardous to me or my husband....)

Sounds extremely shit @MrsRussell

Unspeakably awful here, dm hit a nurse with her zimmer frame yesterday as she's constantly trying to leave and being stopped. Also ringing the only number she can remember which is her sister's, who has dementia. And this is the easy bit while she's in hospital...

In the meantime, a private sector firm have informed me it will take them over 2 weeks to look at the lasting power of attorney form, never mind send it back. God knows how I am supposed to pay for Mum's care if every firm has the same timescale. We have been in hourly expectation if a nursing home place for over a week now.

MrsR back in da house for a bijou rant-ette....

So DM is pissed again (NO!!! really???) I spoke to her yesterday and she was all right-ish, in a drunk sort of way. This morning Himself gets a phone call from the paramedics saying that she's lying in bed and she's soiled herself and will he go round and clean her up.
He says, not a hope. Well, they say, would her daughter not do it, pressure on the ambulance services, and meh.

The reason DM is drinking is that she's being referred for blood test after blood test but with no idea why or what they're looking for. She's being bombarded with medical appointments but doesn't know what they're for (I've seen the letters, she's not wrong.) They've told her she's got a heart problem but not what it is.I'm not surprised she's frightened and confused.

Either she is medically vulnerable, in which case if she's immobile and incontinent they have a duty of care to check her over, or she isn't, in which case them's the breaks when you drink a bottle of whisky a day. Either way, it's not "relieving the pressure on the NHS" to get unqualified civilians to come in and sort out her, literal, shit.

He told them (politely) no, I might add. So here we are being thankless children again and I'm here for that...