Cockroach cafe 🪳 Spring 2022 🪳

@exexpat sorry to hear your sad news.

Exexpat 💐 to you. What an extraordinary journey. I hope you can find some mental space xx

Popped in briefly to see mum earlier as I was passing. REALLY wish I hadn't!

She has given my sister £5k for her wedding. Ffs. She's determined to get through the money dad left (blood money as she calls it...)

Once it's gone - tough. We can't afford to run 2 households. Ffs.

@exexpat i am so sorry you have had so much to deal with. 🌺🌺
you are always welcome here. We will plump up the cushions and crack open the gin for you.

@exexpat What a tough set of circumstances you have come through. It must be so hard each and every time. So sorry for the loss of your DM. Absolutely wishing you the best. Hope you can come back to us with a happy update in the months and years ahead.

I'm so sorry x
I wish you a happy and healthy future xxx

Hi, I’m so sorry this is all going on. They are reporting back to you which they should be doing, it’s apart of safeguarding he might have a few marks, bruises or scratches and you need to know what started it off and how best to deal with it next time. There is nothing you can say it’s not his fault nor yours. My Nan who I looked after went into a home when her dementia became just too much. She was very violent and it took a long time but there was ways of looking after her, things she liked and didn’t and the carers need to learn them.
having a parent with dementia is heartbreaking and so stressful. I really feel for you. Don’t forget to look after yourself, people would tell me this and I never listened but it is true.

Hello all. Commiserations to everyone going through tough times.

I have just popped back to say that I am graduating from this thread, if that is the correct term. I have spent the past week sitting by the bedside of a dying parent for the second time in just over a year, and DM finally slipped away yesterday.

It has been a long haul for all of us: two decades of ill-health, disability and life-threatening health crises for one or other of my parents, during which time both my husband and my sister also died. I hope that this is the last funeral I have to organise for a very long time, and I am looking forward to not setting foot in another hospital or nursing home for the foreseeable future.

There is still a huge amount of bureaucracy, legal stuff and house clearance to deal with, but after that I will finally be able to take a deep breath and get on with the rest of my life.

Omg.
I have no words!
I'm so sorry this is happening to you x

I live in the same town as mum. But my sainted brother and sister live closer...
I think I need to draw back a bit.

My sister is getting married (again) and I'm totally refusing to get involved (she was SO vile to me when I ran around helping her for her first wedding...) In fact I'm debating attending at all tbh. I don't want to play my "part" in this dysfunctional family anymore.

Tricky.

I live 3 1/2 hours flight from my Mum and am back for the second time in as many weeks. The first time she dropped the garden shears on her foot and lost so much blood she ended up in hospital having a blood transfusion. So I spent the time cleaning the carpets and washing the kitchen floor (she told the 999 caller that she was “paddling in blood” and it looked like it.) This time she had fainted in the garden and hit her head. She called me to let me know and I told her to see a doctor as it could be serious. I got her usual “don’t be ridiculous” retort, but she called the doctor two days later, as she was too giddy to stand, and he called an ambulance for her.

The good thing about this hospital visit was that A & E have made an appointment for her to have the fluid drained from her lungs, so she should be able to breathe more easily. The other good thing is that my cousin, who is a nurse (and “the daughter I never had” according to my Mum - what about me?) is going to stay for a few days.

I thought I had persuaded her to get someone in to do a little light housework and maybe run her out to the garden centre occasionally, but she said it is “too expensive.” Have told her she can’t take her money with her, but she says she can’t afford it. It’s about £26 an hour for someone from an agency or £15 an hour for just a cleaner, but she is refusing both, as it’s too much. She has £50K in premium bonds and at least as much in ISAs and saving accounts. She’s 89, she should spend it on making herself more comfortable.

@Lightuptheroom I'm so sorry to hear about your mum. It's so hard when they are doctor-avoidant isn't it? Mine is the same and I'm 99.9% confident she hasn't returned to the doctor to get another month's supply of diuretics for her high blood pressure and oedema she was prescribed 6 weeks ago, in fact I suspect she hasn't taken any of them. So hard when you're the one worrying and trying to hold it all together though whilst they're being so difficult.

@Chevyimpala67 I hear you on being 'done', whatever you do is never enough. You sound exhausted, but then you haven't had a holiday have you, just been on duty constantly to give your DM a break away when you're the one who needs one a lot more than her.

I realised my relationship with mine was over 2 weeks ago when she bought a house 4 doors down from me, plotting behind my back for weeks with my golden sister and not telling me. The icing on the cake was her getting shirty with me for not being delighted at this lovely surprise! Yesterday's display of her entitlement and anger gave me a little reminder of the horrors of last year when she moved here and has convinced me (if I needed convincing) not to involve myself in her move into my road, omg I can't believe I'm typing this. Whilst she was raging at me yesterday, she reminded me that golden tits hasn't visited for nearly a year as that's probably my fault too. Perhaps she can make an anniversary state visit to help her own mother with her latest move? Unlikely, as she as a (part-time) JOB unlike lazy old me on chemo. M told me yesterday she was 'viewing the house' again tomorrow so I'm also 'unavailable'. I just can't face her at the moment.

@Linda42 welcome to this lovely thread, so sorry you find yourself here.

Thanks , we have been thinking infection, but we she won't go anywhere near the GP we can't get any answers. Meanwhile the aggression has got worse again, my dad admitted she locked him.out of the house yesterday, but ' that was oo' says he as he had his key.!

Thank you.
This is a lovely thread.
Welcome x

Chevyimpala67 I think giving yourself a break is a good idea. You are entitled to a holiday and a break and waiting on your mum the whole time isn’t really a break for you. It’s ok to be unavailable (I know this brings guilt) but it really shouldn’t.

Hi Everyone, A lovely person told me about the tread this morning on a mumsnet cry for help. Reading some of the treads gave me a bit of comfort, I think knowing so many of us feel the same way and it feels less isolating.
Thank you. 😊

I think I'm just...done tbh.

She was awful on holiday. Never offered to help wash a pot, make a cup of tea, make herself a sandwich - all things she does at home every day.

But I guess that was what I was there for?

I have nothing to say to her, she has no interests, we have nothing in common, she is only interested in my golden bollocks brother and his dc.

I'm going to be "unavailable" tomorrow.

I'm just so tired and sad.

Hope he's OK x

@MereDintofPandiculation really sorry to hear about your DH, hoping he recovers quickly . I can so relate to wanting someone to take over, be the adult and look after me.

@TheIoWfairy this is mine, she needs me to be the adult for everything she needs, whilst insisting she 'doesn't need a carer' and all the time stropping like a toddler as she has to control everything. She can't see that she is just one massive contradiction!

Hugs to all those with awful holidays and other problems, it's all so relentless isn't it?

DM and I had an appalling row yesterday afternoon over the phone. When she moved here a year ago, she asked DD to source her a new laptop as hers was too old and slow (like her really), DM paid on her own card, refused to let DD set it up for her as she was too busy stropping about the inadequacies of life round the corner from me, then gave the laptop to my golden sister's eldest daughter but ofc, DM can't remember any of this so it didn't happen. I spent an hour and a quarter with her yelling and raging at me, going round in weary circles with her insisting she didn't buy the laptop, even though she could find the transaction on her bank statement and I could view the e-mail from DD confirming the purchase. I totally lost my rag and told her I wasn't making it up as you know, I was actually there! She's now going to check with golden tits 🙄. Every exchange like this severs the 'bond' I have with my mother, she is a thoroughly unpleasant woman 😥.

so sorry to hear of the difficult holidays and other challenges.
@MereDintofPandiculation that sounds really terrifying. Hope your dh is doing well.
Here navigating end of cancer treatment plus after effects, add in covid, plus dm catching covid from carers, carers off sick so I’m having to cover some calls…..
a long awaited visit from dd which means we are all segregated/ masked/ isolating in different parts of the house….at least none of us have covid really severely.
anyone else fancy a large gin?

@MereDintofPandiculation Sorry to hear about your exciting day, both sides of the head at once is no mean feat though. He gets 10/10 for level of difficulty on that one. When mum died I was on the phone with the bereavement office at the hospital and I told them that I was looking around for the adult who would take over or at least tell me what to do. There are times when you really need someone but it's just tough isn't it, you get on and do what needs doing because what other option is there?

@Lightuptheroom if there's been a sudden decline it could be as simple as a urine infection. When you're older the symptoms are different from when you're younger - no pain but your cognition flies out of the window.

I’m sorry you’re going through this @Lightuptheroom . You can express your concerns to her GP - I think I wrote a letter, followed up with a call. Whether that does any good depends on the GP - with my DM it took the inevitable crisis for anything to happen.

You might want to try the Alzheimer’s Society website- they have an online forum which I found very helpful

Talking post

I might post there myself,so I’m glad you reminded me it exists! I saw my DM this weekend- I live 5 hours away so don’t get to visit very often. It’s so bloody painful. Yesterday she was so perceptive and lost at the same time it broke my heart “Did you come to see me yesterday? I was wracking my brains as to who you were. I knew I should know who you were. I’m losing my marbles. How old are you now? … Really? God I’m old. “

This was of course also accompanied by the old angry stuff (threats of killing herself) and crying to go “home”.

Which is why I’m awake at this time!

I need some help, does anyone have experience of getting someone assessed for dementia or anything else when they refuse to see the GP? My mum is clearly deteriorating rapidly... Today she declared that nothing in the upstairs of their house belongs to her, she doesn't know where is all come from and someone must be sneaking in and putting things upstairs just to upset her.
Meanwhile she also declared that a box of old photos must belong to me but won't allow me to remove them until she specifically says so but also wants to repeatedly know how I could be so nasty by putting them there in the first place. I didn't , they've been in the house at least 20 years.
My dad is being shouted at and sworn at daily but refuses to speak to the GP because 'he promised to love, honour and obey' Everytime she looks at him there is sheer hatred in her eyes.
She recounted a story around 50 times yesterday which actually related to something that happened when I was around 2 years old (I'm now 50) which she said proved my dad is a lying inconsiderate bastard.. it happened 48 years ago!
Where do we turn for help?