🪳 Cockroach Café Spring 2024 🪳 🪳

I agree @SeriouslyAgain my Aunt died less than 2 weeks ago and the whole stressful next phase has already started with probate already while I am still organising the funeral because of the six month deadline. I haven't had time to grieve. Come over and join us on the new thread.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/elderly_parents/5141580-cockroach-cafe-late-summer-2024?page=1

Hello All Just checking in really to say 'hello'. This thread and others were a lifeline for which I will be forever grateful. My mum died in March. It was honestly such a relief. But then the whole probate thing started and having thought that I'd done my grieving over the many years she took to die, I've realised I hadn't and I just want some time. To think about her, deal with my quite complex feelings. Give her the respect of sadness.
But I can't because everything is about probate and IHT and beneficiaries and the fact that tax has to be paid within 6 months of death, even though probate may well take way more than 6 months, and in the meantime you can't sell anything to pay the tax that's due.
Yet again I'm left thinking that we just deal with every single aspect of elderly care through to death and beyond so badly.
Feels like I moved seamlessly from pestering doctors, nurses, carers, the 'system' generally to pestering accountants, lawyers, valuers. Probably my diamond shoes are too tight, because almost none of this would be as it is if there weren't money. But somehow it's all so inhumane.
The battle to keep mum at home, to respect her wishes, and now to try to deal with her will as she'd have wanted. And just no time for grieving ever.
Just needed to vent really!

@Feckedupbundle 😅

Glad you’re over the worst @MereDintofPandiculation

My dad had a ruder version of the "blackest cat". He once said of someone. " If you said that you'd been to the moon,and had a shit there,he'd have built the shithouse".
It's surprising how many people I come across,that dad's saying applies too.

MIL is 104. DH is 75, BIL is 72. I really think she's going to outlive them both as they're both stressed to the eyeballs. I said to our vicar a little while ago that I have a despairing vision of being on my own deathbed (I am 52) and worrying about leaving DD to cope with MIL.

Hope you're continuing on the mend, MereDintofPandiculation.

My mother's family live for ever provided they are alcoholics and apart from.the dementia mum is very fit. The thought of another 10 to 15 years fills me with dread.

@Lexy70 fabulous new phrases. I say fabulous because they help me make some sense of the nonsense. I also think your two great ones can be interwoven as well for ‘weaponised helplessness’ and ‘learned incompetence’. I am far from perfect but the past few years with our parents has take its toll physically and mentally so I am not as toned as I was. Goodness me I get the up and down look of disgust every time I turn up. Usually knackered having shopped in 4 supermarkets to get what she likes with decent dates on. I actually shuddered when I read about your friends father at 101. I have contemplated the fact out mother has zero health issues, apart from being awful. If she lives that long I will be just shy of 78. Doesn’t bear thinking about. Oh and yes ‘fat’ well anything over a size 10 is deplorable, lazy and slovenly. My sister andI both sailed incredibly close to ED just so we didn’t shame our parents by being the ‘fat’ girls. They never intervened but if we had gotten fat I bet they would have done.

To add to the new phrases I give you "learned helplessness" and "weaponised incompetence"

My mother 85, sharp as a tack and fully able will feign incompetence when it suits her depending on the audience.

Also had the buying of clothes many sizes too big as a nasty jibe. Being overweight in her eyes is the worst thing a woman can do. Her and my father love to commentate on women's weight, mum cackles as dad refers to " fat birds" on the TV, He has three daughters.

I fear it will never end, my friends 101 year old father is being buried today. It could go on for another 15 years.

@MereDintofPandiculation i wish they would take note but my DM won’t admit she has a hearing problem, it is the phone and the tv not her! DF won’t wear his because ‘they don’t work for his type of hearing loss’. Which, sorry about the language, is absolute bollocks! Also of course when he has tried them DM has volume on TV so loud it is painful! I have explained he needs to wear them every day whilst his brain adjusts. I will try again on my next visit.

It would help if they had a GP who appeared to understand and maybe have a more holistic view. They seem to get referred to the nurse or the in house paramedic (?). I would someone at their surgery might ask DF if he is wearing his and someone else notice my mother needs a hearing test; together with a scan or referral for her unexplained mobility problems inc regular nighttime cramp in her ankles. DM also gets nasty mouth ulcers, when she saw her GP about these she was told ‘what do you expect me to do, go and see a dentist …’. . No blood tests organised or causes explored. (My daughter is coeliac so I know that ulcers can be a sign of vit deficiency or other issues). After that and the paramedic telling DM she had bruised her shoulder when she had fractured it, she isn’t keen on going to the GP - although she got a good number of prescriptions for oramorph for the pain for her shoulder! When she finished the last course she told she had a thing called Cold Turkey and it wasn’t very nice. 😮.

back from another trip to take things to charity. Lovely people in BHF.

@MereDintofPandiculation so sorry you’ve not been well.

Somebody on here a while ago suggested observing them like a lab rat That was me. I’m probably not a very nice person

it’s a very helpful technique. My variation is to pretend I’m behind the camera in a nature documentary so I can mentally narrate in the style of Sir David Attenborough.

hope you feel better soon.

@funnelfan i am sure you are right, DM is a good cook and very practical but has lost her way in the modern world of mobile phones, online shopping etc. Gets furious at DDs lack of common sense (a common problem I suspect) Can still play bridge. DD proud to be a techno phone which is infuriating but he has a retired friend he calls for all tech help for now. @MotherOfCatBoy that made me laugh … I suppose she just assumed you are saying yes of course …

paging @MereDintofPandiculation , we’ll be needing a new thread soon…

Hugs to you all. My mother is almost completely deaf, has to be really close to hear anything, but she can still ring me up and ask me for everything she wants from B&Q. How does that work?!

@Juneday you may find that your parents will prop each other up but if/when a crisis comes with one of them, you end up with two crises as the other one can’t cope without the other around. Has happened recently to a friend.

God news your dad won’t be driving any more, glad no one was hurt.

@Nodancingshoes sorry for your loss and I hope you get lots of help and support over this difficult time. @funnelfan i hope the medication helps and you can find that time for yourself.

So much to catch up here and all the usual
frustrations, with SS & NHS, discharge and capacity. I quizzed Med. Student about how much time was spent on dementia and elderly care in the 4 year degree, so far none but thinks a week in the last year!!! May explain …..

I thought of this thread today as I have just cleared the 10 plastic files I had for the multiple mostly minor health issues for MiL that filled a lever arch…. A large bundle for recycling. 4 crates of cards, photos and momentos on the landing and more things to move from the flat. I don’t get rid of anything without permission from DH and or family. Car full for charity.

in the meantime DD wrote off his car but no one hurst so huge relief and he will not drive anymore. Very hard where they live as there is just one bus, he went to get it last week and bus driver said you aren’t in the correct place, but let him on. DD asked bus driver to alert him when near his stop, driver responded. How should I know I don’t live round here. DD so anxious got off a mile early, tripped and cut his face. He isn’t keen to get the bus again but can afford taxis. DM still thinks the phone is faulty (not her 👂 no) and won’t go back to GP about her issues, both need help to organise online food shop, and DD doing his poor me attention seeking - moaning about DM and calling her a control freak because she tells him what she wants him to say to me in the background when he is on the phone. She is only doing it because she can’t hear properly and he is yelling ‘control freak’ at her😮.

DB and SiL with them for 2 days atm so hope they can get a few things sorted. We will take the walking frame and recliner chair that they say they don’t need but might one day. !

we will all keep an eye on things…. Both now wobbly on their feet, slightly deaf and DD gets lots of words wrong, DM forgets or doesnt hear whole conversations. I looked up Age U.K. and they have no presence in their area - nearest 40 miles away.

They may be fine as they are for some while yet - Friends say things like, so they will move to be near you then … No they won’t for so many reasons. DSis and DSiL and I will all make sure to phone and visit and compare notes, of course they often don’t hear the phone …

Thanks, sadly DMs cognitive decline continues so mentioning reduced hours would make no difference whatsoever to her, she wouldn’t grasp the implication at all. She won’t twig when I start visiting her on Fridays not Sundays because she never knows what day of the week it is, but I am looking forward to having weekends again, and I think so is DH bless him.

@SockFluffInTheBath sorry hearing your situation. I’m glad you have also heard of selective competence- it’s a phrase new to me and I nabbed it from the “out of the FOG” website. Another favourite is terminal uniqueness- our mother suffers from this meaning she is too special to have food delivered- too special to have a cleaner - so guess what it’s all left to us. I’ve backed off the past week and goodness I feel better.