Cockroach Cafe - come and try our new sunroom

New thread title - Cockroach Cafe - we're adding kumquats to the menu

I'm reading and keeping up, but my DM is in hospital currently so off my books.

I will say though that she keeps a diary of every time the next door neighbour rings to tell her that her (NDN) has been, uh, tiddling himself. I bring this piece of information out for HCPs periodically when they say she's perfectly fine. Oh okay, does that sound normal behaviour then?

Sympathies Minty - my kumquat has developed the unnerving habit of telling absolute corkers to just about anyone, including telling a nurse that I forbade her to buy certain clothes and an HCP that my brother and I took an axe to her old wardrobe I have literally no idea where she gets this stuff from but she believes it utterly and totally and will get very defensive when I ask what on Earth she is talking about . The really scary part is that she doesn’t even have dementia (yet)…

I vote we drop the cockroach and adopt the kumquat in all our new titles . Kumquat cafe has a fab ring to it !

Minty if your mum is a kumquat then my DF is a prize plum. We've had a bereavement in the wider family and I've seen a lot of interactions between him and his siblings as we've made a few extra visits. Anything offered as opinion is repeated as fact, then embroidered and repeated again. It's just as well I take everything he says with a pinch of salt. I can only hope anyone he tells stories about me to does the same. Don't get me started on the talking over each other and the race to be first with news. It's like circle time in a very excited pre-school.

@Startagaintoday he's 23. We just hack out these days and not the 3 hours rides we used to do. Had the bugger 14 years and nursed him through atypical myopathy and septic bursitis before. It's uveitis and it looks like it's been insidious for some time so eye removal is a real possibility. I'm not sure if I want to put him through that at his age especially if there is a risk to his other eye. If we get to that stage it's going to be an in depth discussion with the vet.

@countrygirl99. How old is your horse. I have a 26 year old

@NewYearNewMinty best typo ever

@Cheekypeach those scolding you have never gone through it. It's so hard. Basically your life gets stolen. X

So sorry @countrygirl99. So hard.🌺
@NewYearNewMinty love the kumquat!! Dm too embroiders fantastic stories from random facts. Hasn’t seen the neighbours in the front garden/ must be ill/ in hospital etc etc………

@NewYearNewMinty Yup, mum used to string together long stories that she'd made up to explain things that she'd seen. Her next door neighbour had got back together with her ex and they'd moved (she'd seen a moving lorry on the street, not seen her neighbour for a day or two and two and two make eight), there were five lads living next door (it was an empty house but they run a car repair business and had five cars stored there). Trying to establish the actual facts from the speculation was very difficult.

@Enjoyingaquickdip, @Cheekypeach and @Goldenhedgehogs (and anyone else I missed from a quick scroll up) hello and welcome. I wish I'd had a pen and paper with me on the day mum was discharged from hospital because I was taking multiple phone calls back to back, Hospital social worker, district nurse, the emergency care team or whatever they were called - it was one call after the other after the other. I was out having a walk while I still could and trying to keep all the conversations in my head was next to impossible

@countrygirl99 I'm sorry about the horse, it would be nice if you could have a break from these big decisions for a while.

I've just had a nurse describe a heroic search for a piece of information which he eventually got hold of from Mum's GP late in January. May well be accurate description of what he did but I told him that information directly on December 10th.

I'm sorry @countrygirl99 that's rubbish from.all angles.

Ah yes the discharge letter... my mum's ward discharge letter said she was continent. I simply cannot describe how much she is NOT continent but that description has resulted in a 3 month battle by the homes to reach an imagined state of continence which frankly she didn't have BEFORE the stroke, never mind after.

On top of that my horse is sick. He has a painful eye condition and is burning through my annual bonus trying to save his eye. He is elderly so if it comes to surgery I may have difficult decisions to weigh up.

@NewYearNewMinty kumquat is a good one. My favourite ever turned cabernet sauvignon into cybernet Saudi gnome.
My mum makes stuff up about her own life now, let alone anyone else's. She is currently searching for the jacket and trousers that dad was dressed in for his funeral. When she was told that was why she couldn't find them she got very angry snd insisted that dhe wouldn't have chosen those as she wanted one of the grandsons to have the jacket. Dad was short and sligh, the grandsons are all tall and strapping. So now I just shrug when she says she can't find them.

My mum...I have no idea where kumquat came from

Do anyone else's parents just make up conplete and detailed stories in their heads about the lives of people they know, based on scant information and their own wild imaginings and assumptions?

I've just had about 2 hours of my kumquat doing exactly this about friends (mostly of mine) that she knows little about and are absolutely none of her business.

Good grief, thank you so much! A lot to take on. Just been told by the hospital that the doctor only updates once a week.....does that sound right?

@Enjoyingaquickdip Agree to nothing. If you say you visit for Sunday lunch sometimes the care plan may well say that you cover every Sunday (real life example). Be prepared for him to be returned home in a condition very different from that described by the hospital. My mum was sent home by ambulance and we were told she was walking with a frame. She was in fact bed bound.

@Enjoyingaquickdip echo others….. make sure hosp knows you are not going to be there to look after him. He may tell them all sorts to get home.
A v useful phrase learnt here” unsafe discharge” the last thing hospitals want is readmittance for their stats……
I know locally the care situation has improved a bit…..

countrygirl99

notaflyingmonkey

Sorry missed both of your posts, thank you very much for taking the time to reply. Yes very aware that they'll be needing the bed probably yesterday....

Thanks for all your kind words and great advice it is good to read the messages from other people who get how draining it all can be. To all of us I send a big hug

MereDintofPandiculation

Thank you for that advice, yes it's not possible nor desirable for me to be his carer but more than happy to find the financial means for outside carers

Is there not a total lack of carers in the system now after Brexit and the vaccination requirement meaning so many have sadly left?