Cockroach cafe 🪳 Summer 2023 🪳

It's a big Victorian mansion house so it's like a rabbit warren inside. I have no idea how they would have brought the beds and bedding downstairs by hand. And what happens if someone dies upstairs? I am sure it is safe in terms of evacuation but it easier to bring them down than take them up! I am so tearful at the moment. She was such a giving sort of person, would do anything for anyone and now she is suffering so much. I have tried to look on the bright side - she is clean and cared for in a way that I couldn't do but such a sad way of life.

hairbrush I am so sorry.

on the subject of the lift, my guess is they can't really have just the one but there'll be legal reasons for not being allowed to use a goods lift or something?

old age is such a tragedy, I hate it when people say it's privilege.

Very sad visit with mum yesterday. The lift at the home broke at the beginning of July. First of all it broke when the residents were downstairs so they brought all the beds downstairs and they turned one of the lounges into a dormitory with screens - it looked like something out of Downton Abby! After three weeks they got everyone back upstairs and the lift broke again.

Now they are using empty bedrooms as mini lounges so mum has her own bedroom but spends her days in a room with two or three other ladies. None or them is aware that the other is there. They sit close enough that they could hold hands but they don't acknowledge each other. They sit with the tv on in their own world. The staff are doing all they can, constantly in and out of the rooms, the activities coordinator is working overtime and they have choirs and groups coming in to perform for them but I look at my lovely mum, unable to feed herself or drink unassisted, stuck in front of the tv and it breaks my heart.

It's likely to be another 5 or 6 weeks before the lift is fixed and I wonder if mum will still be with us. She's sleeping so much more (that was the case before the lift broke) and yesterday she didn't want to eat the treats I took with me which is unheard of. It seems like all the things that gave her pleasure are slowly being taken away.

MotherofCatBoy
I understand, seeing anybody bickering really bothers me and unsettles me, even if it's something like work colleagues. When it's family it feels like a horrible drama and you're being asked to watch.

Feeling guilty because I lost it with my Mum (and DF) the other day and snapped because they were arguing and bickering pointlessly between them - honestly she could argue with the gate post and she never wants to move on from something settled, she’d rather needle my Dad and make everyone feel like she’s a victim.
… She wants a new garden shed and I am doing my level best to walk her through demolishing the old one which has an asbestos roof and replacing it with a larger one - I can help her go to garden centres, quote for the work etc. I don’t mind doing that. But omg the drama…
And now I feel ashamed of myself for losing my temper, it makes me feel like a teenager again but she’s the only person who can trigger me, I’m not easily angered. Ugh!

And in the long run I just see two people who can’t accept they’re very elderly and still want to behave as if they’re in their sixties. (95 and 87). And who have never stopped arguing.

(Rolls eyes at family roles .. I know, I know… )

@BestIsWest it is a mixed blessing if she gets a diagnosis, which with coeliac being so existent with asthma and other autoimmune conditions, if the biopsy is positive the relief of knowing that she will recover and start to feel significantly less tired, amongst other things. DD used to fall asleep after school. It takes some adjustment and it is hard with elderly family who struggle to understand, but if she is coeliac she will see an all round improvement, brain fog, pain, tiredness will all slowly diminish.

shame about the freezer, spoke to an aunt yesterday 88 years old and very chatty and on the ball said she couldn’t believe she fell for a trickster/scammer - driveway cleaning - but luckily has great neighbours who appeared and scared him away - ended up with her drive being cleaned and him running before taking the hundreds he asked for. But she said she felt so ridiculous and that is the sad thing. She is so sharp and also so sensible with money.

MiL is telling everyone in the home that will listen, that none of her children are alive. Hopefully it won’t scare her when DH and I visit tomorrow and another son on Sunday.

ShellBeach JuneDay funnily enough I started a thread about recovery, and I said on it that all my life I put myself first, and stopping that is partly why I had the breakdown.

BestisWest if it's any consolation, please tell her that recent/new builds have clearly labelled switches as standard, otherwise we would all be making mistakes like that.

This vagus nerve and stomach stuff is really useful - it has never once been mentioned at mum's appointments. Mum still does yoga breathing exercises but has taken advice re suitability for heart.

@JunedayInteresting. My DD was hospitalised briefly two weeks ago after fainting and has been undergoing tests for coeliac among other things. She has an endoscopy booked for next week. She has regular B12 injections and her vit D is always shockingly low. (As is mine). She has a load of autoimmune things going on (asthma, hashimotos, costochondritis) so I wouldn’t be surprised.

DM managed to defrost her freezer accidentally yesterday. No big deal, we salvaged some stuff and threw others away but she was so upset at herself, blaming her age and and memory. I felt really sorry for her.

@EmmaEmerald don’t feel guilty, plenty of us can’t easily do what we sometimes feel we should. You will be more help and better company if you feel well and rested

the stomach link is fascinating and being researched. It is stomach issues that lead to my fainting. My dd is coeliac and iga deficient so I have learned lots about immune system and diet and the huge impact it has on every part of the body. Vit d deficiency goes alongside stomach issues and can cause anxiety, same for b12 deficiency. Coeliacs are often prescribed vit supplements whilst dietary changes are made. It takes months to repair the damage that gluten has caused to someone with coeliac, any stomach issues affect absorption even temporarily and therefore affects mood, growth, joint pain etc etc. Vasovagal nerve is a complex thing.

Your own health is as important as your mother's, though.
You should not feel guilty at all.
You've sacrificed a lot and made yourself ill recently. Please let yourself heal, mentally and emotionally. Put yourself first for once.

on the guilt thing
a friend said to me, innocently, that mum probably lived better and longer because of all the care I put in at the start when dad died.

it made me feel guilty that I won’t be giving that care any more.

JuneDay my mum still has numerous appointments coming up to investigate her falls, it hasn't been an issue to get it looked at.

She's found the general geriatric clinic to be the most helpful as they take a holistic view - what with stroke, vertigo, POTS, you can end up seeing a lot of specialists but geriatric seems to be a good co-ordination point and they take her more seriously. For instance, like me, she can be over sensitive to medication and need a much lower dose than is normally given.

Also, they've paid more attention to the warning signs. For instance, stomach cramps and reflux will often lead to an episode of severe dizziness. The heart dept and other depts were all "oh there can't be a link" but I think with frailty, all kinds of things can be linked.

@EmmaEmerald my parents live miles away but luckily great neighbours came to the rescue and SiL and brother going to visit anyway so offering to get some shopping etc. I have spoken to my father and told him to get a GP appointment asap to talk through possible causes. I am a fainter and have had two visits to A&E because I collapsed out cold, I had endless tests. conclusion ‘you are just a fainter’! But I know it is best to check out all possible causes, so they must do this for an 86 year old surely!! 🤞.

JuneDay sorry to hear that. Good that he didn't need hospital. I take it you'll need to stay the night and so on?

I was in the high street earlier and walked past a mother and daughter, I'd guess in their 60s and 90s. The daughter was shouting "you always do this, mum" and the mum was saying "and you always get worked up about nothing" and walked away with her mobility thing, you know the folding ones.

I physically winced. So many of us in horrible situations.

I have just had a message that I stupidly wasn’t expecting, my father has had a fall and 999 was called, they decided he didn’t need hospital and I am on a train home soon and will ring my mother who is the one that was getting a falls alarm. I hope this encourages them both to organise one each. I don’t know any details but I do know my mother has no bedside manner and will struggle to help my father. Wake up call all round.

@venusand mars I hope arrangements are going smoothly and there is lots more for family support.

Just catching up. I’m sorry for your family’s loss @venusandmars but am glad the passing was as quiet as it could be, and it brings some peace.

Organising a funeral with someone who has alzheimer's is not for the faint hearted. I spent a whole afternoon going through possible music with mum as all she could say was classical which still leaves a very wide choice. A few minutes after leaving the house she phoned me to tell me the hospital had just called and dad had died. He'd been dead 7 days, we'd met the undertaker, discussed music, readings, how he would be dressed, the wake and had a meeting with the celebrant, all of which she was involved in. She decided on white flowers then forgot she'd looked at flowers and wanted a coloured arrangement and then back to white the next day.

DF had mentioned to me that he wanted the socialist anthem The Internationale played at his funeral but DM vetoed that. We played it at the (tiny due to Covid) wake instead.
She was very clear about what hymns she wanted for his funeral and I think choosing them gave her great comfort. I think grief and Alzheimer’s blurred a lot of things for her during that period and I had to sort flowers and other music but tried to go with things I knew meant a lot to them both. She’s specified that she wants the same hymns at hers.

Both DH and his sister are a bit my way is the only way too, and as they rarely see eye to eye on things it can lead to all kinds of fun and games. MIL has occasionally spoken about the kind of music she'd like at her funeral service in general terms, but whether that would be good enough for either sibling remains to be seen. FIL is the kind of man who'll go with the option that looks as if it would cause the least friction, whatever his own feelings on the matter might be.

If it's a big family then I think it helps if the deceased made their wishes known because it reduces the potential for arguements. There's no room for discussion over what they would have wanted if they actually specified what that was. When my husband died his sister decided what undertaker I should use, what flowers I should have, what the casket should be like and I let her because it was easier than arguing. It upset me at the time and I'm still thinking about it now. I can't think what it would have been like if there had been more people trying to make decisions.

My brother fretted that he hadn't discussed funeral arrangements with dad and wasn't sure what was arranged was what he would have wanted. But what we did was what mum wanted as well as she could express in her grief and she was the one there to see it. And tbh I think brother was irked it wasn't entirely what HE wanted and he's a bit "what I like is the right way" about everything.
I know they had discussed arrangements together but between grief and alzheimer's mum scarcely new what music or flowers she wanted and kept forgetting she'd made decisions which made it tough for us. If we knew what they had discussed it would have made our lives easier.

@MereDintofPandiculation "It can give solace to the bereaved partner that they are following their loved one’s wishes."

My mum has always said that she wants to be rolled in a bit of old carpet and thrown in the dock. While I don't think I will be following her wishes to the letter I do think a direct cremation type thing would be her choice. She has always hated funerals, has not been to a family funeral and only perhaps two if that for parents of friends.