🪳 🪳 🪳 Cockroach Café Late Summer 2024

The saintly good daughter is probably one of us sick of hearing how marvellous you are @EmotionalBlackmail 😂

@user14541775 deep breaths. None of this fair. You’re allowed to be annoyed.

I remember muttering at one point that I was going to live on an island on my own!

Definitely not a good daughter here. I'm sick of hearing about DM's neighbour's saintly good daughter though! Although I bet the saintly good daughter is secretly planning an escape to an island too.

Hm @EmotionalBlackmail Perhaps moving to a remote island to count seals then. Although a walrus would probably turn up to tell me I was doing that wrong as well.

@PermanentTemporary indeed I am a bad daughter, probably the worst of all the bad daughters in England. All the other daughters are better and manage to look after their DM's properly, giving up their lives and jobs and managing everything just smashing. So everybody can continue on their merry way with no inconvenience, (no) thanks to the wonderful daughters, all of whom are better than me, more capable and more cheerful.

That sounds horrendous @user14541775

I doubt a convent is the answer though - they're also full of old people as most nuns are getting on a bit now (friend is about to become a nun - she's the youngest by several decades!)

@user14541775 a bad daughter's place is in the wrong,,, except we're not bad, we're just wading through crap because someone has to

Yes, DM lives on biscuits. She has lost the ability to recognise when she is hungry or thirsty but snacks on biscuits all the time and has loads of sweeteners in her tea and coffee. She lies in bed all day too, how she’s only 7 and a half stone goodness only knows. I get automated texts from her GP surgery asking for me to take her in for a blood sugar test because in the past it’s been a bit high, but I’ve not bothered - she’s not going to change her diet at this stage.

@user14541775 sending . Escaping to a nunnery sounds a good plan.

I hear you on the cancellations. It just makes me sad to have to abandon plans. We lost the cost of our holiday this week as we didn't think we needed insurance for a week in the UK.

Moan moan moan

I can't do anything right. Everything I do is wrong for someone. Apparently, the care home is wrong, the nurses are crap, the food is crap, the location is wrong, the doctor is crap. All my fault. Sibling and DM don't want me selling the house that needs sold, I'm doing DMs POA wrong, I'm not visiting enough, I'm not showing enough "ambition" at work, which is also crap. My coursework is crap. I'm a crap wife because I'm moaning about being moaned at. All the chasing around and endless POA admin, never a word of thanks.

How easy is it to become a nun?

Sugar cravings seem to be fairly common in dementia.

Definitely not judging the Maccy D. It's not something I like but I have been known to dive in on the way home from Mum's when I'm starving.

We had McDonald’s (please don’t judge)
No-one’s judging anything on this thread

MIL’s dementia is the opposite, she forgets to eat, and has no appetite. I think it’s fair to say there’s no normal with dementia except it’s cruel and unnecessary.

I’d also forgotten they are both hard of hearing. Tv is so loud and no-one seems to notice!

Am visiting ILs and I haven’t seen them for a few months. FIL has dementia but I’ve noticed he’s sort of forgotten that he’s eaten and is constantly snacking on sweet things. Since we got here at 3pm he’s had a banana, some chocolate biscuits, tried to eat another banana but MIL stopped him. We had McDonald’s (please don’t judge) which he hardly ate and is now eating a trifle. It doesn’t bother me as at least he’s eating but is this “normal” as dementia progresses?

My mother has a way of saying ok when something has either 1) completely gone over her head and she doesn't want to admit it or 2) she has understood but has absolutely no intention of following an instruction and doesn't want to admit it. Took her for a hospital appointment this morning and she has a process she needs to follow for a test and she was using that ok. I suspect it will be a monumental failure. I've done what I can to put in place support in case it's 1 but if it's 2 nothing will help. I strongly suspect it's a 2.

Got to unload this morning, to friends who know the score, which helped a lot. Off again to the hospital today. I'm so tired, and there were plans we had which are, now, most likely going to be cancelled, with most of the stuff not refundable.
Says something, doesn't it, that by the standards of this thread, this is all pretty lightweight!

We had a long call with the social worker yesterday to assess DMs care needs. Needless to say she performed to the best of her ability. Could remember everything she was asked down to the ages and jobs of the grandchildren. She looked amazing too, her skin was glowing, her hair was lovely. I think if she’d been asked to demonstrate her mobility she’d have gone in to a high kicking dance routine. She’s very determined.

I think we're about to find out.

MIL was admitted (as a social admission) to hospital last Saturday and has been having various tests. No one has yet told us what they have found as we can only visit in the evenings due to work.

We know that the manager of her sheltered accommodation has raised safeguarding concerns, so it seems unlikely she will be able to go home. Still working on the next steps.

The care coordinator checked in with me via WA. Given herself can speak for herself just fine it's not necessary , but might be handy in future! And given I have PoA, can't blame the care company for wanting to have good relationships with anyone who might be signing off on the bills.
Have a day off visiting a friend, and still, we talk of carers, and elderly relatives, and overstretched GP surgeries, as we ourselves hobble slightly shakily around ..

100% this. If you read the NICE guidelines it is all meant to be joined up between healthcare and care, with family consulted. This has not been my experience.

Wishing strength to all of us navigating the broken system.

Quite, @MysterOfwomanY . FIL doesn't need a general hospital bed any longer, as the injury that got him admitted is better now. But can he stand up without help, or walk as far as it would take at home to get from chair to bed/commode? Or even get into his own front door? No. Can he even acknowledge that this might be a problem? Noooo, he either can't or won't. We won't go into all the comorbidities.

Making appointments with care homes, to try and get a tiny bit ahead of the game here. We've been down the same road with MIL, but her needs were very different.

It's so crashingly dumb that "care" and healthcare are organized separately.
The majority of care is needed for people with multiple frailties and comorbidities, well known to their doctors.

@Projectme locally there is a thing called crisis care which tbh families can request. Do you have an SW phone number? Bombard them. Be more of a nuisance than the other poor sods.

We were halfway to the hospital today when the new live in carer (yay) rang to say the doctors wanted to speak to herself.
A bit of a ! moment but they just wanted to talk through his treatment.

@Earlydarkdays hang on in there.

We are having what can only be described as a relentless week. Instead of being on holiday with DS (27) treating him to some fine dining as he's been so busy at work and has had a tough time over the last few years. He is with us this week in a holiday rental about 30 mins away from PILs with pizza rather than fancy restaurants.

We have taken FIL with mixed dementia into a care home for respite care and then tried to fix some of the chaos left behind with MIL. We've done food shopping, sorted paperwork, caught up on washing and called British Gas out to fix the dodgy heating. We have started carers going in twice a day for MIL and she has accepted this but the fragility team at the GP have said she needs carers four times a day. I think the whole thing will fall over if the carers go in for any extra visits as MIL says they talk too much.

On the plus side I dropped some extra clothes for FIL off at the care home and he'd gone out for a trip in the minibus.

I was desperately in need of a holiday but have spent this week at the beck and call of two eighty somethings.