I can't do this anymore

No useful comments but I greatly admire your kindness in looking after her.

Is hospice (or nursing home) respite care possible even for a few days until you can get something more organised in place?

Is your Macmillan nurse based at the hospital or does she see her at home?

If you haven't got a Community Palliative Care Nurse you need one - they may be badged as Macmillan but increasingly aren't, the GP will know how to refer. It confuses a lot of people who think they are getting 'Macmillan' but aren't actually known to the service they need.

You also need a referral to the District Nurses for end of life care.

And most importantly you need a referral to whoever does Continuing Healthcare Fast Track in your area- usually the District Nurses but not always, this is your route to funding for a care package or nursing home.

You may be lucky and there be a hospice bed available quickly but there is often a wait for a bed to be available. Also none of them offer long term care - they are based on stabilising the person for a period of usually a fortnight and planning discharge afterwards.

This is what I came on to say. A UTI in an older person can cause dementia like symptoms. She needs to see a doctor OP.

Did you get medical attention for her @ChristmasGrinch24 ?

No, it’s not that SIL needs to take over. Suitable care needs to be arranged. This isn’t fair on MIL. She needs proper end of life care and unless SIL is a pallative care nurse who is willing to do in 24/7 then she isn’t the right person. DP needs to take emergency carers leave tomorrow and start ring the appropriate people as outlined above. It will be difficult to put things in place over the weekend.

Huge sympathies OP.

IMO / IME this is an acute medical issue and the NHS need to find her a suitable setting. Call her GP, call her hospital team, say it is a crisis and you haven’t got a bed for her, or the personal capacity to do ANY care.

Good luck.

Has she not been checked out medically still?

Do you have anywhere else you can go with the kids, just for a few days? Leave your "D"P alone with his mum and see how fast he starts trying to get things sorted.

That aside, if you want to get help you need to follow the advice you have been given and call adult social services today. She needs to be assessed and a care package put in place. Unfortunately social services are so overstretched that if you even offer to do a little, they will expect you to do it all. You need to be thick skinned and tell them in no uncertain terms that you are not prepared to carry on as you are.

An ultimatum to your partner wouldn't go amiss either.

Let me tell you why he hadn't even got the children up for school. He doesn't want to make a rod for his own back is why! He doesn't want you to think that he will be the one doing this from now on so he feigns incompetence leaving you with no choice but to sigh, roll your eyes and do it yourself. Because if you don't the children will suffer... he's got you stitched up 🤬

I'm so sorry you are going through this. I do hope you get some adequate responses from adult social services today and the wheels can be set in motion for your MIL to be taken somewhere (hospice, nursing home) where she can be more easily given the level of care she needs. However, you really will need to play hardball with them or nothing will happen. Don't talk to them about stuff you can do, emphasise the majority stuff that you simply can't do.

Mention how you are already living with disabilities (you and your children) and make clear that this is crisis point now. Give them no wriggle room to duck out and leave it all to you because they will if given half a chance.

Good luck.

What a useless selfish git your partner is OP🤬
I would be looking for a way to move out and leave him to it 🤬

Cleaning aside, do you get any help? Pretty sure this will now fall under palliative care, you can get help. Did you speak to Havens hospice for example? When my mother was on her death bed, still in hospital but there was moments where doctors were discussing sending her home, I did have option of getting help from havens hospice.

They need to build more hospices, or even just huge wards specifically for people who aren't getting treatment to get better but just palliative gentle care, somewhere safe to just be in their end days.
How in 2024 are we not looking after our old people who have lived a life.

Unfortunately hospices have very limited spaces. They're so specialist and sought after (sounds weird, I know) that they literally have waiting lists. We pushed and pushed for my mum to get into one and eventually succeeded but only because she was in hospital on an overcrowded ward and they wanted her gone. Also we had to get referrals from her Oncology team, Macmillan etc to get her moved. Even then it took weeks.

Does she need to be in hospital? Or can you arrange for the local healthcare team to come round and help? You can also get hospice care at home but would need to research the availability in your area.

Macmillan were less than useless IMO.

Sorry you're going through this ❤

I couldn't just send her home like that I'm not a monster.

I'm sorry you find yourself in this awful position of an ill elderly relative and no support.

However It's good she still has her own home.

And yes what I am about to suggest may seem heartless and mean.

You will now know that you should never take an aged frail relative into your house without a clear plan of who provides the intimate care they often need. That there should be a care package in place, ready to roll as soon as they walk through the front door.

So you're playing catch up and yes you have to play hard ball - with both social services and your DH.

Here's what you do - make contact today with social services. Explain you have an elderly frail relative temporarily staying with you but she's going home tomorrow / Saturday / soon and you want a care package to support her. Explain she can't stay with you because of yours and the children's disabilities.

Then tomorrow / Saturday / whenever you take her home and call social services to say she's now home - what's the care package ?

All the time she's at yours, there will be little leverage for you to get her the support she needs.

This type of situation has been in play for decades - I remember vividly the distress of a colleague when informed her frail mother was being discharged from hospital that morning miles away. She was all for dropping everything and dashing to her Mum's when the hospital social worker said look they are banking on you NOT being there. If you're not there she has to be re-admitted. If you're there, the ambulance crew will leave her there and you will be expected to pick up the pieces.

With such a sudden change in her physical health I would have taken her to A&E to have her checked for something like a UTI or chest infection which can cause confusion in frail elderly people.

Oh and please don't think the Macmillan nurse hasn't done what she should - they really are for symptom control and emotional support. They have no resources to provide intimate care.

Totally agree with this. Once in hospital you can ask for a referral to the hospital social worker for a Care Act assessment and explain that you can no longer manage her care at home and she cannot return to either her own home or to yours. But you have to stand firm and not be guilt tripped into taking her. She will likely be discharged to a nursing home and be provided with the care that she needs. She will be further assessed for long term placement once there and be at least entitled to funded nursing care. If she is deemed to be end of life, she should get Continuing Heathcare funding.

Agreed

You poor thing, this is too much for anyone. I hate it when others stand by and watch you crumble, people who are meant to love you. I agree with others about social services. Sending good energy to you

She most likely (pretty 99 percent certain) she has brain mets on her brain. But we're awaiting CT scan results that will take a week or so.
Shes refusing all steroids this might explain why she's so bad?

She needs to be seen by a medic ASAP. You can't just decide it might be this/that and wait a week.

Do you have a partner?

What, after 6 on an evening, when the poster says throw them out the same night? Not sure there would be any care home or hospice which would take them at such short notice on the same night.

If you can’t get immediate help from her GP, social services or McMillan then next time she is delirious/confused call 999. I very very rarely say call an ambulance, but new onset confusion is considered a medical emergency, and the paramedics may be able to initiate an immediate response from services that you can’t get at so easily. (Ambulance family here). And if they think she’s not safe at home they will take her to hospital, which sounds likely to be the safest and best place for her at the moment.

it sounds as though she has a delirium probably due to a urinary tract infection. I’d ring the GP or 111 as a matter of urgency, and the Macmillan nurse and social work.