Cockroach cafe 🪳 Summer 2023 🪳

Tearful and breathless phone call at work this morning from nan. She fell but had got up and wasn't hurt, just shaken up. She wanted me to come over but I cannot leave work this morning- I work with children anc cannot break ratio. The carer was due in so I rang her - she reported back that nan was fine and sleeping on and off. I popped in on my lunch break and she was hysterical when I went to leave...I'm at my wits end. I feel like I can't go on with this 😭 I told her my BIL would be in at teatime but she just wants me to stay. I just had to go in the end.

😮🤔 I know. Spoke to my father today who said don’t worry your mother means if I go first 🤔.

Worryingly he also said my mother can barely walk atm, and had a small fall. Sensibly they are looking at falls alarms for her. My father can be a bit of a drama Queen and she was yelling, ‘I am not that bad’ in the background 🤣. but my mother is the type that avoids doctors and won’t have a walking stick. She fractured her shoulder last year and has an on going foot and/or dizziness problem that has been investigated but nothing concluded. Every time we think she has found good advice she decides they are wrong. She refuses to give in or complain and still cooks really good food every night - very different outlook and life to MiL and as yet no dementia🤞. Although I see little warning signs that I will keep an eye on. 🙁

Gosh. What could possibly go wrong?

@emma contact the ot for an assessment of needs.

Nothing to loose, or ask Local Help the Aged or Citizens Advice first maybe.

Juneday "Also likely already know that everyone is entitled to £1000 worth of equipment in the home"

Is that dependent on boroughs?

After mum's stroke, we got a railing by the front door, a shower rail, and a frame to put around the toilet.

I don't know if the zimmer frames from hospital count in that £1000.

I think she needed a bed rail type thing and now I think she needs a commode. Should we speak to the council?

Yes exactly … sorry just confirming my view although sometimes hard to speak to the people you need in my experience - I think we had 3 different names of case worker before a helpful and proper response.

FIL must have had the same advisor. According to his mates social services should have provided 24 live in care for MIL despite them living in a 4 room bungalow and needing separate bedrooms. This poor live in carer was apparently meant to sleep in the tiny living room that you needed to go through to access the kitchen and had only minimal furniture to leave room to move MILs wheelchair around. Funnily enough it never happened.

with help of relatives cleared some of the genuine rubbish from MiL’s flat and some of her many freebies and special Daily Mail bits still in wrappers and boxes for charity. But vast majority of genuine mementos still in situ. Managed to squeeze in returning chairs from storage saving her nearly £200 pcm / phew. Waiting to hear when the 6 ‘hospital equipment items’ will be picked up. I expect it will take two visits. We will visit MiL today, family that visited yesterday and said she was slightly less agitated and still confused but still says she wants to go home🙁.

@MereDintofPandiculation social services should and do exist for every U.K. citizen…. Whereas financial assessments take place for elderly care, they still are the go to where you need specialist advice. Also likely already know that everyone is entitled to £1000 worth of equipment in the home, not means tested and same for attendance allowance etc if they qualify. Not means tested.

My DM has taken to telling family of her caring plans - which involve a fictitious family who will live in her house rent free in exchange for being her Carers, cleaners etc and she will live in the 2 storey annexe (with plans for a stair lift) - sounds grander than it is, but is a lovely space so living there would work. It is her unwavering belief that this family of Carers exist that is the first hurdle. Never mind tenancy agreements, safeguarding checks etc. My father looked perplexed and asked if he was involved. I think I will try to politely nod and change the subject when she explains all this on my next visit, however much I want to point out the flaws. DP are not quite in need of Carers yet and DM won’t want a reality check because she is always right!!

It is just easier, when we are running against a time deadline to just keep my cool, not get into discussion (about the tablets for example) and dress DM myself - and use the small child strategy of "which trousers, the blue or the black?" rather than leaving her to faff about getting every pair of trousers out before making a decision. She was dressed, hair brushed, perfume & lipstick on in 10 minutes.

FILstime management went out the window too. One time DH turned up to take him to a hospital appointment. He gad booked someone to come a d cut his hair 45 minutes before the appointment. Couldn't see the problem as the hospital is a 5 minute drive. But he walked at a shuffle and even if DH dropped him at the front door before going off to park it would take him at least 15-20 minutes to get to the department. DH ended up dropping him off, parking and then running ahead to say he was here.

@MissMarplesNiece that rings so many bells with me! Time awareness and management went for my mum a while ago, and it’s a major operation to get mum up, washed, dressed and out the door for a certain time. It’s like all those threads on faffer husbands, but with added wobbliness. Doing a bake off style “you have 30 minutes left” is useless because she’s lost the concept of how long that actually is. I’ve had success been using some tips I’ve picked up on this site for managing toddlers! (Never had kids myself)

Sometimes I've just got to laugh.

DM had an appointment at 2.45. I had my own hospital appointment before that so didn't get round to pick her up until ten past 2. She was still wandering around in her nightclothes. Asked her why she hadn't got dressed yet to which she replied she hadn't had time. A bit exasperated I said "You've had all morning" Her reply to me - " well I do have eleven tablets to take". 🙄

PS to anyone thinking sorting out 11 tablets is quite time consuming, she actually takes 8 and they are all presorted into those little dose boxes by the pharmacy.

@Lightuptheroom so sorry to hear that, but 97, 1926? Amazing really. I hope all goes smoothly over coming weeks and arrangements etc go well. So hard to read stories about your father and mothers situation - sadly I hear similar from friends whose mothers are becoming more difficult and their fathers are suffering. It is distressing. @Levie sorry for loss and hope all goes smoothly over next few weeks.

say yes to all help both.

@Lightuptheroom and @levie I am so sorry for your losses. 🌺🌺

Thinking of you @EmmaEmerald xxx
Hugs to everyone finding things hard.

Nan is getting a hospital bed delivered on Wednesday!! She has slept in her chair for months so I'm hoping this is going to make a difference to her pain. We had to get a little bit tough with her this week cos she is just not listening to advice or accepting help. I wish I could make life happier for her but I can't unless she does this.

Sorry for your losses @Lightuptheroom and @Levie

I've been a long time lurker and have got a lot of help from following other people's experiences. Thanks to everyone for sharing their journeys.

My lovely Mum died last week but my MIL is still going strong- independent in her own home in her nineties- so I will continue to check in.

My MIL died on Wednesday morning. She was 97 so it was totally expected.

My mum's response to anything and everything is now very strange. I told her MIL had died, her reply? She wanted to tell me that my sister hasn't visited 'for ages' and that my other sister didn't say goodbye when she flew back to Australia (neither of which are true)

Now getting reports from neighbours that mum slammed the car door on my dad's legs (he's physically disabled) and screamed at him out in the garden. Unsure who to report to as none of the professionals want to know.

I rang the care home who were so helpful. We agreed I will take a box of incontinence products to them once a week. (They don’t have huge storage facilities). Phew. Clearing space and removing bits for charity. MiL seems to have kept every taxi company flyer for 20 years😮🤔.

A minor frustration compared with others but another example of poor communication and waste of tax payers money. Requested all the hospital equipment be picked up from flat as MiL in home and likely to be permanent. Brand new hospital bed, mattress, Sara steady, commode and table. OT passed on the message any details, text from company saying technician will be with you, text saying technician has been. Only he hasn’t. It appears he went to the care home but no one can change his instructions without the OT and she is on leave. I am at the flat, tomorrow we are taking furniture out of storage to save MiL £200 pcm. Also incontinence team didn’t seem to know she is in a care home. Result 6 boxes were delivered and rather annoyingly the neighbour to them in and left them blocking the hall. It is apparently against the rules for NHS rehab team to take back even unopened boxes of incontinence product. These sort of debacles in this alone likely costing upwards of £500 to NHS. And we have paid for the van. We will be squeezing everything in somehow. 🤞😁

@WhatHaveIFound I had exactly the same when my Mum was in hospital last year, couldn't get anyone to assess as she was self funding. The discharge team wanted to send her to a rehabilitation unit which the nurse on the ward said was unsuitable for dementia patients.
Luckily managed to get Mum into a nursing home just before Christmas. Have come to realise that her being in a home doesn't eliminate problems just presents different ones.
It's been 4 years since her diagnosis and it's heart-breaking to see her decline and that Dad is now alone at home, it's not what either of them would have wanted.

Visited dad yesterday and he seems a lot better. Still not able to walk or transfer from bed to chair but at least this time they're not pushing him out of hospital. Very helpful nurse on his new ward who is going to try track down his missing teeth but in the meantime has noted he'll need soft food.

I was doing ok until dad asked what I thought of my new baby brother. My brother who was stillborn nearly 50 years ago. Had to go sit in the car and have a good cry afterwards.

I've spoken to adult social care but they weren't interested in sending anyone to assess the situation since he's self funding. Comes under the same remit as the continence team who we've been waiting months for.