Cockroach Cafe 🪳Autumn 2022 🪳

sorry @IthinkIsawahairbrushbackthere , I hope you don’t get it too badly. It’s is feasible to go and wave through the windows, heartbreaking as that may be at least you will see her?

my DM is doing really well in her assessment unit, a bit of attention and three hot meals a day have brought her back to her (limited) best and I was actually having a back and forth conversation with her yesterday. Recently it’s been me wittering at her and asking a question and getting a one word whispered answer.

however, the occupational therapist considers she’s now ok to go home with additional equipment (bed lever, toilet frame etc) and carers four times a day. My concerns are that 1. She’s already said the house is too much for her and she want to move to a flat. 2. They are assessing her at her best, and not how she is when she’s at home.

I presume at this stage I have to wait for the discharge team to do their “big picture” assessment and not panic at what the OT said? I am thankful the social worker saw her at home at her worst so they will have some balance.

So sorry to hear that @IthinkIsawahairbrushbackthere I hope you don't feel too poorly. What a shame for you, however do you think your mum will remember that you said you would visit? Is she able to take a phone call from you or could the home set up a video call? Not the same I know but at least she might see your face.

All my plans for Christmas have gone out the window. Having arranged to borrow a car for the week so we can visit my mum I have tested positive for Covid so can't go near the home! She won't understand why I am not there on Christmas Day. Every time she says she will be home for Christmas I have said I will visit her and now I can't. I am so sad for her.

Dad's no better, but thankfully no worse. He's definately seeing things/hallucinating but doesn't seem frightened/bothered by it which is a relief. He asked me to cover him in moisturiser as his skin was itching (it hasn't done this for a while) and I sat quietly massaging his hands until he fell asleep and I quietly left him to rest. He'd had a card from his sister that he enjoyed me reading to him too. He was much calmer today, so I'm assuming that they've changed something medication wise.

country I hope it all gets sorted asap

mere thanks for the information, if they're mid takeover or some such, I'll think again.

hope everyone is all right today.

Some of the Lloyd's branches are franchises so it could be a franchise changing hands

@Malbecfan that have finally managed to despatch the donepezil but I can't see it being here before Christmas now. I was hoping to fill up while mum is here rather than do a 3rd 2 hour round trip in a week but hey ho. No sign of the Sertraline but I have enough of that to last until her meds review at the beginning of Jan. Thankfully youngest DB is taking her to that so I shall ask him to get a paper scrip from the GP if it hasn't arrived.

Malbec don't worry about me, I was just having a trivial moan.

I was thinking to switch mum to Lloyds as the current place doesn't deliver...maybe I shoukdn't!

@EmmaAgain22 and @Badger1970 I'm so sorry things are so difficult now. I have no advice, but I stand with you.

@countrygirl99 we have had nightmares with Lloyds Pharmacy getting DF's prescription. DF self-catheterises. He has done for several years. It's the only thing he gets on prescription, but he self medicates on a shit ton of vodka, gin and wine. As he is staying with me, we handed the prescription to Lloyds the first week of November. After 10 days they managed to get one box, rather than the 3 prescribed and gave me a note saying the rest was due. I'm still bloody waiting. The lied about it not being in the shop when it was there. In desperation I rang Head Office and they said they would sort it, but they haven't. It's a 6 mile round trip to go to Lloyds and they have the monopoly in our nearest town. I got December's prescription posted here and on the advice of one of my students mum, took it to a pharmacy 5 miles away yesterday. They rang in the afternoon to say they had 2 boxes. We went this morning and all 3 were there. Lloyds are absolutely rubbish by comparison.

Oh I'm sorry, this is so hard

from memory, I think dad was hallucinating but knowing he was hallucinating, about two weeks before they put him on proper end of life status. Are you going tomorrow? I'd ask them why he's not officially on that. In dad's case, they wouldn't say it but I think it was because they thought mum would object to it.

I really feel your pain but FWIW at this stage, I think some movements are involuntary and he can't feel them.

The trouble is that Dad has always presented much better than he physically is.. and I have a horrid feeling that it's this causing the issue. I think the whole reasoning behind a nursing home was that he had months left rather than weeks, but the decline in the last 3 days has been awful.

To add...the reason I ask is that if he is, they should not be shy of intravenous morphine. Also, it sounds like maybe time to try a stronger sedative.

Possibly the reason I had to ask was so that they could not be accused of giving him too high a dose.

Badger sorry to ask, but is he officially "end of life"?

He is on Haloperidol 3 x times daily, as well as gabapentin for nerve pain and he has a morphine patch. It's absolutely horrific to watch, and it almost seems like he's hallucinating but then he seems to know that he's imagining things. I feel awful saying this but they've had lots of new arrivals in the last few days and no one came into Dad at all during the hour and a half I was there which worried me. The lack of contact and difficulty trying to talk to staff there is starting to get me down

To be clear, the HCA suggested sedation to his superiors and was ignored!

Seems unlikely.

is he sedated at all? I had to ask for dad to be sedated, the HCA had seen the twitchy hands and got a sense of his agitation (he wasn't really conscious) but for some reason, it took me asking for sedation to get it done.

Badger none of us know or can tell, but genuinely, I think the Hospice team would have made noises to outsource your DF before now. Their team will know many times over the difficult and stressed state illness causes. Hugs to you.

Dad has taken a turn for the worse over the last 3 days. I think his liver is failing he's got very twitchy hands, and his confusion is horrendous.

Praying now that they still don't want to move him .........

FIL used to give us the "we looked after our parents you should move in and care for us blah, blah" bit. But, his parents both died in their 60s, his dad died in an accident, MILs dad was ill for a few months in his early 70s but spent a good proportion of that in hospital having previously been in good health and MILs mum was in good health until she had a heart attack and was found dead. Their "caring" was having their parents round for Sunday lunch on a rota with siblings. And they all lived close together.
Compare that to our situation - we had 4 parents aged 84 to 94 all with significant care needs. My parents an hour away in 1 direction and DHs an hour away in the opposite direction.

And the old expectations aren't based on parents living this long, I think.

Tbh I don't think any of the expectations of children taking care of parents has gone,regardless of sex or any other factors.

I was just thinking how handy it would be if I didn't have to go at xmas but it would upset too many people.

@EmmaAgain22 historically in the U.K. it was very common for the youngest daughter of the family to never marry and to stay with the parents as their caregiver. I don’t think that misogynistic tradition ever really went away.

sean they will give you advice, I guess? But wouldn't it be your dad's decision finally?

funnel we haven't really had a conversation about my limits but this was just a bad luck thing. I have no problem dealing with food orders. It was a really bad week for me and I was at her house because I saw my friend who lives nearby. Mum wasn't askimg me to do anything. But yes, I am finding the post-stroke changes hard.

Re the looking after thing, we did have a strange thing with her GP. After one of her falls, she couldn't remember some details about it, and he asked me. So I said "I don't know, sorry, I wasn't around" and he exclaimed, crossly "but where WERE you"? I had to explain patiently that I don't live there and even if I did, I could have been out!

He apologised...he's quite fond of mum and perhaps just had a weird moment. I do find that being single and childfree gives weird expectations on what you do for the rest of your family.