🪳 Cockroach Café Spring 2024 🪳 🪳

@IthinkIsawahairbrushbackthere that made me really smile. Lovely story. And anyway she might be right…. I am reading Lincoln in the Bardo atm. ….

Oh @IthinkIsawahairbrushbackthere how lovely. A memory to cherish

@IthinkIsawahairbrushbackthere That's really lovely!

We had the loveliest afternoon with mum yesterday. It was such a lovely day we decided to sit in the garden. Unknown to us the activities lady had planned to take those that wished outside for a cup of tea and biscuits so we had a lovely time with everyone, mum was alert and smiling even if she did ask if my DU was going to recover and come home from hospital. We said that he wouldn't but she said he might because she had been talking to someone who had been dead for six weeks and she came back! So obviously being dead means something different for her. But it made my cousin smile so that was worthwhile.

There are some terrible homes around but this past week has really shown us that DM is part of a community where she lives and by extension we are too. DU was part of that and there were tears and hugs from visitors, staff and residents because they all knew and loved him.

Thank you for the kind words, very true about babies vs older parents/relatives. My work were happy for colleagues to leave immediately for child issues, not so for me with my mum. I’m sad to see the challenges with getting support don’t seem to have changed. Anyway, wishing strength to all x

StiffyByngsDogBartholomew

dnt normally post so not sure how to mention people. But what you said has just hit me as so true.

Yup all text book stuff. It still hurts being criticised all the time, and while I havent done anything heroic, any acknowledgement that I have done stuff would help but I know it’s not coming. I’m being asked why I’m not there, why she isn’t living with me like other DMs are. Even if I could, I couldn’t (if you know what I mean). Guess that makes me bad daughter.

Officially signing in if I may.

Similar situation to @Squirrels81 with my DF. However fortunately we do have financial POA from years ago which helps.

Whilst I’m not local I’ve had to travel over a lot on short notice for crises which I simply can’t keep doing. Taking up a huge amount of time and headspace and no gratitude just complaints.

@IthinkIsawahairbrushbackthere as a fellow vet I am so pleased to read your post about your feelings for your dm now. You had it so tough 🌺
Much sympathy to others in the trenches- @WannaSweetie so sorry you didn’t find us when you would have been listened to and offered gin and sympathy.

I am with you FiveFoxes, but also huge admiration for those that do take on all caring needs. I have what drs dismissively call an over sensitive vagus nerve. It means I feint and BP drops threw the floor set off by weird triggers, one being a a stomach bug - twice admitted to A&E and put on a drip. As a result I am useless at dealing with other people with upset stomachs, even the cat!! So once when MiL was sick I found it really difficult. I am not generally squeamish, but even thinking about it …. And it’s so true Funnelfan and others, lack of help and support.

MiL had Covid booster this week and wasn’t well after, no updates. DH will visit on Sunday, 50/50 she will be asleep.

own DM on phone asking same old questions and repeating things she has read in the paper about IHT - she is obsessed with it!! DF did report they had a good visit to Specsavers 😁👍. DM has bletheritas (sp?) and was given good advice so 🤞.

@BishyBarnyBee sorry to hear, I hope your DM gets an accurate diagnosis and you get lots of advice on where to get help. Everyone’s journey is different - but lots of sympathy and help on here. I have mentioned a dementia nurse rang me to chat through MiL, although it took a while for that to happen she was lovely. We also got a pack with details of lunch clubs and charities locally to MiL. She refused them and tbh because of her fall so quickly after diagnosis we didn’t chase up. The one thing I couldn’t find in our area was meals on wheels - I naively thought every area had one. My friend in next borough is a volunteer delivery person a couple of days a week - I hope it gets reintroduced for all, one less thing to worry about.

I looked after my babies (and still do even though they are teens now). I love them. Because I love them, I would NEVER want them to have to look after me. I don't think anyone who has walked this path would wish this fate upon their own precious children.

I would also add, those who would shame others for not taking on the full time care generally think looking after elderly parents involves popping around every day for a cup of tea, maybe running round the hoover and a couple of errands. I find those people that have done the full time care at home may say it was a privilege to do so, but they are never judgemental of others not doing it, because they fully understand what is involved. I’ve got one acquaintance who violently recoils at the smell of baby wipes because of the association with using them for intimate cleaning an elderly parent at home. She has really mixed feelings about that time.

It’s really opened my eyes to what parents of children with many needs go through. Much as I feel ground down with my mums care, I know that it can’t last forever and she is mortal. If this was my child that needed this amount of care, a child that was otherwise healthy and would be expected to live to adulthood through all of my life - I’ve no idea how those parents stay sane. I know one elderly couple who had a child with severe Down’s syndrome, and used see them pushing their adult child about town in her wheelchair. They were fiercely independent. Sadly when one of the couple died, the other parent just couldn’t cope at all on their own and fell ill and died themselves soon afterwards. I don’t know what happened to the adult child.

All of that @StiffyByngsDogBartholomew and I would add that babies generally don’t have bank accounts and pensions that are entrusted to you, let alone own houses to mantain and other legal affairs to manage. After all, they generally live with you and not at a separate property in a different street/suburb/city/country.

This is such a common attitude but so misplaced.
a) I chose to have Dd at a time of life when it suited me. I had months of pregnancy to prepare for it, emotionally and financially. I had nothing with my mum, it just happened
b) society is queuing up to help new parents. Nobody wants to help you with your elderly relatives
c) I had a year off work to look after a baby. It was the only thing I had to do. I have to do ParentCare between my full time job, a teenager, trying to maintain a marriage.
d) looking after a 7lb baby is absolutely nothing like a 15 stone immobile 80year old with their own mind that doesn't want to do what you want them to

This group was a lifeline to me when DM was still at home with me. DM now has no memory and very little language but she was only in the home "because I was too selfish to look after her myself" and anyway she didn't need looking after because she wanted to do things for herself but I wouldn't let her!

But that is in the past and now I have nothing but love and compassion for the shell of my mum that remains, sleeping in the armchair or the wheelchair, unable even to wipe her nose.

My heart goes out to all of you screaming for support. It was a long fight to get carers for DM and even after she was assessed as needing them it took 6 months for a company to be able to provide support.

Thank you. That's very much my thinking, though sadly it appears MIL didn't pass the memory test at all, she just thought she did. So she has been recalled and there will be further investigations. I feel very sad, I have been pretty sure this was where it was heading but no pleasure at all in it being proved to be true.

@BishyBarnyBee Sounds like that thread was full of misinformation. It is so frustrating to know your destiny but have your hands tied. Also difficult to have two separate struggles in different geographical locations. While they are both independent to a certain extent, take as much time away from them as you can, and prioritise you I say.

Fist bump @Squirrels81 - also screaming into the void having seen the decline in my DF, undiagnosed dementia, plenty of other health conditions and it’s all my fault he can’t live independently any more.

Have some tea and cake (or the top shelf is there if you need something a little stronger).

I’ve just found you remarkable people.
DM, 80s, undiagnosed dementia, plenty of medical conditions. Been screaming into a vacuum since covid about her decline in cognitive function, memory and mobility. I’m 200 miles away with a job and family. She has been assessed as no mental capacity. Has SW. No POA, can’t even discuss it. I tell myself it’s the dementia but it’s so very hard. Just tells me she doesn’t understand why she can’t live at home on her own and because she can’t understand that, in her head it must be my fault. I’m telling lies and making stuff up and spreading lies about her.

Thanks for your understanding @WannaSweetie - We do our best in unfortunate situations and sometimes people don't appreciate that.

That’s sad @WannaSweetie - are you still processing it all? You’ll find plenty of people here who understand.
I still have both parents living in their own home, but lost my maternal aunt to dementia in 2019. Wouldn’t wish it on anyone and if you haven’t seen it, you don’t know the demands it imposes. It’s very hard on those who have to care and decide.

Hi, newbie, fell down the rabbit hole today & ended up here. Lost my mum Sept 2019 to alzheimers at 91 & felt incredibly alone in her last 4 years battling hospitals, carers, care home & mum herself. My heart goes out to you all facing this now with your oldies & the support on here is lovely to see. Still trying to make sense of things I did & didn’t do, whether I could have done more, if what I did was enough.
I hold on to the lucid moments of humour that mum still had & try to remember them & not the awful things.
I once posted my distress at the start of it all around 2015 on another well known forum & got majorly slammed & shamed under the ‘she looked after you as a baby it’s your turn to do all that now’. So I did it all myself & felt so alone.

@lucycoco i really feel for those going through DST will disabled and ill younger people. The guy chairing MIL assessment more or less every case will become an argument and he is running out of steam to argue, so tends to be cautious and I felt there were more low moderates than I would have thought, SS argued one and I think I added context that helped. Apparently any past issues don’t count, so that refusing meds on a number of ocassions didn’t count as currently uncooperative, but then nursing staff did admit it often takes two attempts. So that may have marked her up 🤔. If we know she has a history of not taking or refusing, surely it matters! But the nursing home don’t want to look negligent and I think it was only me that brought it up. They denied it had ever been a problem, but it had because she got admitted to hospital with a chest infection after refusing meds. Also DH told them about her feinting and history of it. I suspect she will get extra nursing funding.

she is not a home owner so they take all her income and some savings which goes nowhere near covering the costs. If she owned her home she would have been forced to sell last year to pay the £6k ish pcm. But they can’t do this if there is a tenant in common spouse usually, living in the home.

care home rang today to ask permission to give latest Covid booster. Lots around atm.

I can't catch up with everything I have missed lately so just jumping back in where we are. I have given up on my old laptop and have finally given in and logged in to Mumsnet on this one which is supposed to be for study.

DM is still going - she seems to have a chest infection every month or so but rallies and comes back to us.