Cockroach cafe 🪳 Summer 2023 🪳

Wow, £12?! Our neighbours are paying about £40 for about the same number - and the window cleaner is so busy he can't fit us in!

Mine has sacked the window cleaner because he put the price up to £12. For 10 windows, 2 doors and a big bay! She’s going to do it herself apparently.

My mother's gardener was used to working under direction. He was good on hedges and lawns but did pruning under supervision until he was deemed to be proficient. Plant butchery was not allowed.

I'll have my care robot now, it can learn all about me whilst cleaning the bathroom and dusting.

Made me laugh about gardeners 😁 my neighbours pay a fortune for a large van with two or three men with leaf blowers to blow leaves around once a fortnight. For weeks they left a feature bed full of weeds because they thought they were perennials. 🤔. I am
certain they don’t have any gardening knowledge. We had better luck for MiL as teenage boy next door was keen to get holiday money and did a fab job of the very small garden. She used to get a gardener through Help the Aged, he was OK and happy to do just 2 hours here and there.

@venusandmars was just having that chat with a friend, what will we want etc and how will we cope! We do have DNR for MiL which was a family discussion prompted by Drs. I feel for care home and nursing homes, if they don’t offer all they can to maintain life they will be worried they aren’t doing their job, but MiL often asks for a gun. 🙁

I tell myself that we will have Care robots 😁 and can programme them according to our wishes, but how far those wishes go will be interesting and part of on going ethical discussions with AI. I know what my mother would want when she gets to a certain stage, but it is illegal. She saw her sister fade to nothing in a home, she was paranoid at that time telling my mother the nurses had axes and poisoned her tea😮🤔. She died in the night aged 92 and her death certificate said ‘old age’. As far as I know she was not in pain, but she hadn’t read a book, watched tv, played bridge etc for 2 years which were all her favourite things. She self funded, likely over £100,000 in fees - which she would have been furious about - so luckily she wasn’t aware. A familiar story I am certain.

@venusandmars they don't actually - they have a responsibility to carry out her wishes. We managed to get nutrition drinks crossed off Mum's prescriptions because she never touched them. It was purely for their own benefit that they kept giving them to her because it made THEM feel as if they were doing something. Such a waste, and to that generation I think food waste is almost physically painful so they are adding to her stress.

@Juneday My FiL asks me the same one question everytime I go to visit. Sometimes now twice in the same visit. Every time I give him exactly the same answer, then he makes the same joke about the foreign country that dc is living in He has no recollection that I've given him the same answer the day before, or the day before that. I like to imagine there might be some kind of rerassuring familiarity in the rhythm of the words - a bit like reading a small child their favourite story book? And I find it much easier to be a little bit detached because it's Fil, it felt much harder when it was my own Mum doing the same.

I was on a different mn thread recently about the plight of getting old. So many people were saying that when they got to 'that age' (whatever that might be) or if they were frail or losing capacity, that they'd just pop off to dignitas, or wold have a living will that specified DNR, no iv antibotics etc. But it's not that simple, is it? MIL is so sad. Cries whenever we see her, doesn't want to be here, and has not a shred of joy in her life. She describes her existence as 'hellish'. She is barely eating (we think it is an active choice) but the care home have a responsibility to encourge her and to give her nutritional drinks.

NHS records appear to be quite mad, I'm having that issue with my surgery too.

So I've had the phone on Do not disturb and there's an outgoing voicemail saying I'm not well

This morning the care home called. To be fair, they didn't leave a message, presumably because of my outgoing voicemail.

I rang back and they just wanted to let me know that she'd got off to her hospital appointment all right. That's kind in a way, but clearly the message doesn't get through about not being disturbed? And the lady I spoke to said she'd ring when mum is safely back.

I'm going to have to find a way to tolerate all sorts of calls aren't I.

@countrygirl99 all so familiar indeed. I have tinnitus and it’s so annoying, but I tell people and also remind others. I need glasses so I wear them. But MiL, mother and father all need glasses and don’t wear them. Even when my father drives which is while other worry…,

@Lightuptheroom I can’t imagine how distressing and also SO frustrating this all is. We had one time where MiL was said to have capacity, but after neighbours complaining of her screaming out, ambulance and SW … it was established she didn’t! I am disappointed with GP practise too, I thought they would liaise and follow up - you have likely already tried writing to them. They don’t have to act on it, but it had to be logged and filed and builds a picture, certainly one that shouldn’t be ignored!

I had done this a few times, including when my mothers fractured shoulder was diagnosed as a bruise by a paramedic in the GP practise? I said a simple look at her files will show you she never costs, never makes a fuss and yet she is in agony and not sleeping. She ended up on morphine …. Although she rang me to say when she finished she had a thing called cold Turkey and she didn’t like it.

if we don’t try and get the message across many of this generation prefer to grin and bear it, which is rarely the answer.

@Juneday that's so familiar. Mum has replaced her phone a few times because " so and so said they called but the phone didn't ring" and dad had to take his hearing aids out because the tv was so loud. When dad died mum through her hearing aids away because she didn't remember having a hearing test so, as far as she was concerned, they must have been dad's.

My mum has progressed to ringing my sister late at night asking her to come and 'talk to' my dad because he has apparently said he's leaving her. Half an hour later, another call to say that all is fine now, but she can pop in for a cup of tea if she likes!!

The verbal abuse is increasing, she constantly refers to my dad as an f ing lying b, but he won't confirm to any professional that she is doing this so no action. She's now hit him 4 times to our knowledge. He denies it, no action taken despite being witnessed by district nurses.

Mum will then ring all of us and suggest that we take my dad away. He's got no intention of going anywhere.

Still being met with flat refusal to do either a will or POA.

The professionals (lot of community medical teams involved with my dad) and social worker etc just say they can't speak to us as my mum won't consent to them doing this.

Mum complained yesterday that the carer was telling her to take her medication, she knows what she's doing as she's been taking the same meds for 4 years... Except it's not 4 years, she's been on them for at least 20 and is regularly forgetting to take them.

We can't even get sight of the care plan. 2 care visits a day but parents state they don't know what they are there for.

The house is getting filthy dirty, parents say they do all this themselves.
Mum has now sacked 2 gardeners after declaring that they don't know what they are doing !!!

She managed to cancel a Dr appointment I made for her after a particularly bad verbal episode against my dad, GP hasn't even bothered to query why the appointment was made by e consult and then it was my mum who cancelled it, they really don't want to know.

Dad's decided he doesn't like the care alarm as he 'knows' they will take him to hospital and sit him in the corridor... As he is very wobbly and also has frequent catheter blockages it's a major problem.

So, basically they don't need help, don't want help and every one can get lost, apart from when they suddenly discover they do!

My sister started not admitting she was deaf when she was about 60.

Someone on another long thread just said this

"It's hard not to feel exasperated with the alien who now inhabits their body."

my mum isn't is even that bad and I feel like this. It's like, where did mummy go? But tbh it's been hard work for her to be herself since dad died.

I'm also getting frustrated with the "not admitting to going deaf" thing.

Feeling for you all as for the time being MiL is likely to stay in nursing home I can relax. But I laughed, sorry, in a slightly mad way …. The not believing they are deaf @countrygirl99 My mother has tv up on maximum and can’t hear on the phone. But that is because the phone is faulty🤔. It’s not we test it when we visit. Father admits to needing his hearing aids but can’t wear them when tv is on because it is so loud it gives him a headache.🤣 My mother will never admit to forgetting things so when we visit this weekend she will tell me the same stories she always tells me and ask me the same questions that I answered when I last saw her. My sister gets quite short tempered but I can see this is the beginning of a slow steady decline - she is loosing confidence and becoming a real worrier - father just his usual self obsessed and moans about DM behind her back which I really don’t like. 🤞 they don’t have an argument this weekend - I confess I don’t look forward to the visits like I used to. 🙁

Friend is DMs best friend and found me on FB messenger some how! She does sometimes message if she can’t get an answer from DM which I don’t mind.

I’ve no intention of taking them at all - the two friends are more mobile than DM (although the one who got in touch is getting less so) and can get there by bus anyway (free bus pass) but one of them is notoriously tight with her money and wouldn’t dream of contributing to a shared taxi. I won’t be committing to anything - but I’ve been pushing the taxi idea for a year now. If it was my friends and I really wanted to go I’d suck it up and bear the cost.

Don't let anyone pull that. Be rude if you have to be.

people tried it on with my dad for driving them around after he retired, even long distance. Sorry to say, even alleged friends tried "but I can't go to my nephew's wedding 100 miles away unless you drive me".

some people are born with a sense of entitlement.

Wow!

Why does said friend have your mobile?

Ignore. (Or text back "this number is for medical emergencies with mum only")

@BestIsWest we have a transport service for medical appointments but we also have community transport that does a shopping run and can be booked for one off trips to wherever (sometimes it's a minibus, sometimes it's a volunteer in a car). If there are three of them going then they can share a taxi surely?

If you're looking for permission to be unvolunteered, here it is, @BestIsWest . Your art teacher will be expecting you, for a start. And you just know how it would go. Gratitude for a favour transforms itself rapidly into expectation, then comes the stage of absolute bafflement that you might have other plans yourself.

@SunshineGlamourIfOnly I heard her tell a friend I take her for coffee on Thursdays. I did once.

When I picked her up from the lunch her friend asked how I was enjoying retirement. Then later, I got a text from said friend saying what a shame it was that the community car service is only for medical appointments and can’t be used for taking them to social activities.

I’ve been volunteered haven’t I?

I have the opposite problem with mum. She is convinced she manages just fine and doesn't need us to do anything. She doesn't realise she hasn't paid a paper bill all year because she owed so much they were threatening to stop delivering and now DB pays every 4 weeks by bank transfer. She didn't realise that a mouse infestation in the kitchen was a problem. She keeps calling out British Gas because the heating hasn't come on because she's switched it off. And the latest was being overcharged thousands for some work in the garden. Annoyingly I offered to do the garden jobs myself. They would have taken a few hours and only cost about £200 for materials but she spent 4 years saying she wasn't sure she wanted it done. She's lost bank cards 3 times this year. She has forgotten all of these things .
There's the constant fear of what totally preventable crisis am I going to be dealing with next and that sinking feeling when she calls - she only phones when there is a problem. And I can't just call to check she's OK because she doesn't accept she needs a hearing aid and so there is no point phoning after about 2 as chances are she won't hear the phone over the TV then I panic and think should I drop everything and drive an hour to check she's OK. But if I phone in the morning there's a high chance she's out, she's still totally mobile only her brain is failing, and so I get the same panic. Tuesday is community minibus to the supermarket. Wednesday is Salvation Army social and lunch, Thursday is line dancing, 2 Fridays a month are WI. So I can only safely phone Monday, Saturday and Sunday mornings.

@BestIsWest I hear you! I take mum shopping one Monday, and if I'm not careful I 'take her shopping on Mondays'.

Nodded in recognition about suddenly finding yourself expected to pick up their friends too.

Has anyone read The Reluctant Carer: Despatches From The Edge of Life?

I was recommended it by a friend and it is so very worth a read! Very well written - compassionate but really hits the spot!

I learned that sometimes pretending to be angry gets a result.

I can't understand how some siblings are seen differently. I drew boundaries very early on but I think they blurred a bit as I worked less.