Cockroach cafe 🪳 Spring 2022 🪳

Honestly... go on your trip. Seriously.

He's gone to hospital. Blood glucose was 1.

@countrygirl99 we all feel your pain. Sending strength and good wishes.

BIL2 is on his way over as he is the nearest.

FIL has apparently had a diabetic hypo and still isn't stable but is refusing to go to hospital.

Next best flight is 18 hours via Kigale and Johannesburg instead of a 3 hour diect flight and it leaves 12 hours later 😔

@Mum5net all the same airline but the next available flight with the same airline isn't even the next day☹️.
Paramedics are with FIL so we are waiting for an update before we can make any decisions. DH has phoned social services re MIL as she can't be left and is waiting for a call back.

@countrygirl99 Is you connecting flight with same airline as first flight and booked as two parts of the same journey? They should put you on next available at no extra charge. If they are two separate journeys then that might be difficult
Hope FIL doesn’t prevent you from travelling.

Oh no @countrygirl99 ! DF nearly died just before we were due to go on holiday a few months ago and it was so stressful. Are you still going to go?

And just had a text to say our first flight has been delayed 2 hours. We had 2 hours before our connecting flight.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
Due to leave tomorrow morning on a covid delayed, once in a lifetime trip meant to be to celebrate our 60ths and Ruby wedding.
MILs carers have just phoned. Have called an ambulance for FIL as he is on a very bad way. Have asked if DH knows where his DNR is. We were just enjoying a bottle of wine in the garden.

We seem to be back to square 1 with getting DF in a home. 😣

If he stays in hospital or is moved to temporary respite his home care package expires next week. He would then be moved to a temporary placing in a bigger town about 45 minutes drive away from my parents' town, while he waits for a place in the only nursing home that's local to where they stay, which is a few minutes walk from their house.

So DM has agreed to have him back and the hospital have said they'll give him sedatives so he's not keeping her up at night. She doesn't know why they didn't suggest this before.

I've asked her to check how this will affect his place on the waiting list for a nursing home (I'm not actually clear if he's on the list yet) and if she can say she'll have him back on the basis that he'll get moved when a local place becomes available.

I'm not sure what else to suggest. Given it took so much for her to get to the point that she agreed he needed care, they'd both been through accepting that he wasn't going to get back home, and that they lasted 5 days the last time he was discharged, I just can't believe this is happening again.

They won't move to the bigger town, which would make a lot of sense as it's closer to everything and they have lots of friends there.

Good news @countrygirl99 !

Things are starting to look up. FIL has accepted (again and hopefully finally) that he can't cope with MIL anymore and SS are looking for a place in an urgent basis.
My jumper turned up. Someone at the other end of the village got back from holiday on Friday and it had been left in their shed. The house number on the parcel was not one we have ever lived at it and I've checked she has the right address in her address book so 🤷‍♀️

@MrsRussell I know a little about this as used to do the clearing bit! The person doesn't have to die for adult services to step in. If she's now in a home, they should do something called 'protection of property ' which is basically listing everything in the flat and removing anything of obvious value (ie money, jewellery, which they then lock in a safe along with a very detailed list of what has been removed)
They also arrange the deep clean and removal of rubbish, keep repeating that you are not doing it, can't afford it etc and they have to charge her for it.

That's shocking @MrsRussell you stick to your guns.
Finally got tosleep about 2. Paramedics put him in bed and told him to use his walker. At least the social worker is going in today

When people have died at mums sheltered housing complex who had no family the council empty it and dispose of belongings.

@MrsRussell I wouldn't be giving notice on the flat on her behalf, your position has to be "nothing to do with me" so your mum can give notice on her own flat (or have the social worker assist her with that). If you do it then you've stepped over the line into being involved in the situation. It's not your flat, it's not your stuff, it's not your problem unless you make it so. We are not required to care for our parents, if the past relationship has been manipulative/abusive/distant then why should one adult be forced into care for their abuser? Not all families are close and loving.

If someone dies in the community with no identifiable family then social services will do everything, secure any valuables, attempt to find family, arrange the funeral, clear the house. The social worker has access to someone who is already an expert at this and has contacts for specialist cleaning. If I could remember what the team was called it would be a help but that was twenty years ago and I've slept since then.

I came away from mum's yesterday with the boot full, the back seat of the car full and the front footwell packed. However much work you think it is, it's more than that and that's just a normal house.

Omg.
Can you block the social workers number?
That's so out of order.
Ime they do - eventually - give up but it feels like a war of attrition for a while.
I think sometimes you do need to just drop a hand grenade in there ..(so, giving notice on your mums flat for example)
It's the only way to get them to pay attention to what you are saying sometimes:(

I'm just not bloody doing it @ChiswickFlo!!!
FOUR times they rang me yesterday, while I was at work. I asked the social worker to call me back today on another number and guess what? She rang me again at work yesterday.
I mean, I could just give notice on her flat on her behalf, and let them take her to court for the damage. Which they would - we're not talking about a couple of handprints on the paintwork here, but things needing to be totally replaced. (Furniture stained with body fluids, kind of thing. You see why I'm not up for that....)

Please tell.them exactly that @MrsRussell ! 🙂

Just poking my nose in the door for a rant - mum is now in a care home, yay.
I'm girding my loins for battle royal today because I will not clear her flat and Social Services think it should be up to me to collect her things. Apparently it's "stressful" for her that she's still paying rent on the flat.
I have no idea how many times I have to tell them, it is not a matter of picking up a couple of bags of clothes. It's a rented flat and it needs to be cleaned. She is/was a hoarder: there's a broken microwave in the wardrobe, bin bags full of old magazines, piles of clothes and shoes.
It needs a deep clean before she gives notice, and she will need to pay for that, and for the damaged fittings to be replaced. We can't afford it - and I bloody wouldn't pay for her damage, even if we could! - and if she can be ringing me 5 times in the early hours of the morning on her mobile like she did overnight, she can bloody well speak to people herself.

Adult Social Care can go piss up a rope.

Really sorry to hear that countrygirl, did you get any sleep?

I think - I dint mean to offend - that in the long run it's good that this has happened.

It's usually a crisis or series of crises that mean SS or LA finally get involved.

It's distressing, Obviously, but can be the catalyst for more interventions.

Mum very quiet yesterday. I've got to wait in for my new washing machine this morning so won't see her until later today.

The inevitable has happened. FIL had 2 bad falls yesterday. First was in the morning, luckily during MILs carer visit so they got him up. Then he had to use his pendant alarm and we got woken by a call from them about 10.30. DH couldn't go as we had wine this evening so BIL is over there now waiting for the ambulance. DH has managed to get back to sleep and is snoring away but I'm wide awake.