Cockroach Cafe 🪳Autumn 2022 🪳

I'm struggling to hold things together at the moment. From thinking Dad was going to die 2 weekends ago to now slowly facing the horror of a slow decline too... Dad's drinking well, and they're feeding him smoothies, ice cream so his calorie intake is lots better. But weight has fallen off him horrendously - he was around 16 stone before the cancer, he's now around 11 stone His life consists of sitting in a chair or lying in bed watching TV and chatting to family when we're there. Christmas is now going to be arranged around a schedule of visiting and at some point moving him to a nursing home. I thought nothing could be worse than losing him, but watching this slow painful death he's going through is horrendous beyond words.

@EmmaAgain22 yup I can imagine all too well.

Back to work tomorrow. Very tired and a bit shell shocked, but I'm going to be too guilty if I am not at the nursing home tomorrow not to be at work. I'll go back to the home on Sunday afternoon but I have a really nice Fri eve and Saturday planned.

I do feel we are at long last in the final weeks or just possibly months. Surely, surely she can't go in much longer.

@PermanentTemporary completely understand what you’re saying. Please look after yourself- you can’t maintain high alert for an indefinite time.
@Badger1970 i hope you can get some more high quality care for your dad.
Hospices are amazing, but have such limited capacity.
thanks for the heads up @IthinkIsawahairbrushbackthere re calorific cockroaches…..

PermanentTemporary oh. Um. Right. There are things I don't like to type out but

I feel for you.

When my dad was dying, he took so long about it, I had a sort of repeat thing in my head that was like hysteria chant - but I took a dark pleasure in saying it in my head. Luckily it never came out of my mouth.

How are you holding up? Like I say, I really wish I had spent less time there at his side and more time doing normal stuff.

Mum has rallied. She's much frailer but eating again. I should be glad but I'm not. My guess is that we're looking at weeks more of slow bumpy decline with more rushes to the bedside.

I am glad, though, yp have been around long enough to make a thorough nuisance of myself to the GP and AHPs and I think I have now bashed out all the ambiguities in the care plan. No more antibiotics for any reason. Nothing changed without ringing me.

Thanks, yes I've just looked at them.

how are you holding up?

The day hospice where Dad is takes people with life limiting illnesses and it offers everything from counselling to therapies along with medical teams for symptom management. They do everything from art classes to physiotherapy and occupational therapy. It's like a one stop shop for accessing help/support in one place, and I think people go there in blocks of weeks.

Sorry, I will google that!

Sorry to ask silly questions, but what's the purpose of a day-only hospice?

Yes we're very short on hospice beds sadly. This is the only one in our county that has in-patient beds, the other facilities are all day centres.

I google so you don't need to :-)

1g of cockroach contains 2 calories.

Can we rename this "The High Calorie Cafe"?

Badger I am under the impression we don't have enough hospices, not sure if that's fact or feeling.

@Mum5net He's basically still there, and looking incredibly frailer by the day - but they're incredibly short of beds (there is only 14 there, I believe). So the plan is to find a nursing home but it's not happening at any break neck speed thankfully. After being a belligerent old bugger for his first few days there, he's now so settled and happy and the staff are amazing. It breaks my heart to think we've got to move him but I have no bones with the hospice over it all. I know understand why people passionately fundraise for it locally.

@Badger1970 Does this mean the hospice didn’t discharge him? I know that was a possibility.

My Dad is in a hospice, and they focus on small amounts of high calorie food. Their soups are incredible, full of cream and butter!! Dad's diabetic but they've given up worrying about his blood sugars and he was eating a ramekin of ice cream yesterday. He's eaten so little for weeks now that it's brilliant to see him eating anything, bugger what it is.

re food at mums care home they dont appear to be working about calories at this stage they are regularly given cakes biscuits jaffa cakes and jelly babies !!! and they try to pinch each others as well !!

Does that include any medical people? Just concerned re the oxygen.

I have had various health issues of my own, plus my parents, for a long time, and I have never felt so concerned about the state of things.

Re enablement team have assessed and decided that my parents don't need any further help.
In a 5 minute phone call my mum referred to dad as an aggravating b and fing unbelievable... So we're back to normal

Hi Malbec

Re food, sadly this message is not coming from mum's doctors but I might be doing them a disservice as she has a lot of stomach problems so that may be why they don't mention it.

However, on the geriatric ward, I couldn't help noticing they seemed obsessed by her blood sugar and just after I managed to get her to eat a banana, they commented her sugar had gone up a bit, as if it was a bad thing. It's normally very low.

Mere four chances at sweet things sounds good.

tbh I don't bother about what mum eats, as long as she's fine with it, I'm fine with it.

@PermanentTemporary I'm thinking of you, mum's final month had several "come now" calls followed by her being up for breakfast the next morning. She was happy enough but I was constantly on edge.

@Malbecfan at 88 I was told to forget everything I knew about healthy eating and go for the opposite as it was all about getting enough calories into someone who ate like a sparrow. That included little bowls of nuts and squares of chocolate at hand to absently nibble and if she wanted a fried lamb chop every day then she had one.

I'm a non-qualifying cafe member, mum died just over a year ago and MIL is in a residential care home so I have no caring responsibilities now. She looks better than she has in years because she eats properly and takes her medication as prescribed. It turns out that one of my persistant health issues has gone away so I'm guessing it was stress related.

@Malbecfan welcome. It does sound as though he would qualify for the AA - DM gets it but won’t spend it on a cleaner (she says she’d have to clean beforehand ).

I’m with you on the fish and chips and alcohol- DM gets through three or four bottles of red a week. Why shouldn’t she?

I’m having a ‘rest’ this week as in bed with the dreaded Covid. DB has stepped up and is going to visit each day and do her shopping. I have to say that he’s been great the last few months, as if he’s realised how much I do.

@PermanentTemporary wishing you and your mother peace.

Just catching up. @PermanentTemporary I hope things remain peaceful and not too drawn out. @Malbecfan welcome, pull up one of the comfy seats. It sounds like you might already be having to do enough for your Dad to qualify for attendance allowance. Maybe the money could be used for a companion or cleaner a couple of days a week. My friend has a cleaning agency and she was able to find me someone for my Dad who, as far as he was concerned was there to do his housework but in reality was giving me a couple of days off and providing a bit of company.

Welcome @Malbecfan.

Is there any reason why your df wouldn't have paid care as part of the picture? It seems a big decision to drop your hours and maybe just having some paid hours would fill some gaps? I know it's not always that simple though.