Cockroach cafe Summer 2025

Feeling lucky that my parents have got to early 90s before the issues you are all describing have hit.
One question how do you cope with holidays, I’ve one coming up but it looks as if I might not be able to make it due to dads health. If he’s vaguely ok the day before I’m due to go do I go and look like a total bitch if anything happens or do I stay home lose the 1500 quid cost when in all likelihood he will make it through the week.

Oh God @tobee, it all sounds like a right nightmare.

DFIL fell again last night abd DH found him on the floor cold and confused this morning. He does have a falls alarm but it didn’t go off this time, it ciukd be tgat he slid off the bed.

The upshot is that he’s finally getting end of life care which should hopefully start tomorrow in a lovely home that he’s been in before so will feel safe.

Lots of phone calls today and a lot of sitting with DFIL, so not the day I’d planned but at least he should get the date he needs now. They’ve given us an overnight sitter too so I’m just off to bed.

NB "Then after this I get messages from mum saying what time will I get there to take dad to his previously scheduled hospital appointment? And could I bring a bit of shopping?"

This appointment is scheduled for tomorrow lunchtime btw!

So how's your Sunday going?

Dad fell over yesterday (second time in a week) and they called mum's bracelet alert people. Got him up and in a chair. Marvellous. They are carrying on their day as usual.

However, get a call from my sister this morning to say that I should expect a call from mum any minute to say dad was having trouble with his legs and difficulty walking.

Upshot of that is, despite both sister and I saying call an ambulance, they're not going to. A few more calls; but dad is fine had some ibuprofen and feeling better. Mum was going to have a rest.

I call a couple of hours later to have mum say she'd phoned an ambulance an hour before. So I tell my sister. She arranges to go down with her husband.

On journey she hears from mum that they'd had a triaging call from a doctor.

Then another call to say ambulance cancelled and what would sister and bil like for dinner? 🤯 Sister not happy as she's incredibly busy with busy job and new employers, kids off to university etc etc

Anyway, the long and short is, after being told off by sister and then me on phone, sister calls back to say an ambulance has been called. Again.

Then after this I get messages from mum saying what time will I get there to take dad to his previously scheduled hospital appointment? And could I bring a bit of shopping?

I had to message my sister to check that I hadn't dreamt that they'd re called the ambulance.

My poor sister is having to stay waiting for the ambulance which was originally called over 5 hours ago. She may well be accompanying dad to A&E and all that can entail. God knows what time they'd finish!

Same for my DM. It’s a huge relief. Just very expensive. But worth every penny.

I hope she will too. My DA has gone from being very unhappy at home to thoroughly enjoying being in her Care Home. It’s owned by the Avery chain.

@Morenicecardigans have a lovely break and solidarity with the sorting of a house and garage with things in the dark corners that are now banned and ‘builders rubble’.

If BIL has chosen a care home for when you’re away, he obviously thinks a team of people are needed - so let him manage that team and the consequences of his choice while you recharge knowing that MIL is safe. Hopefully she will like it more than she expected and enjoy some company.

Have a fabulous holiday Morenice. I’ve found recently that my extended family ate very good at telling me what I should be doing for the older ones i care for but not actually willing to do any of it themselves.

@Morenicecardigans have a lovely break. Not much you can do from ‘away’ so no point even thinking about it while you’re gone.

Oh goodness @Morenicecardigans i hope they are lovely to her and she feels ok while she is there. Have a wonderful holiday.

Finally at the airport for our much needed holiday after weeks of stress sorting out PILs house so the sale can go through in a couple of weeks. The house clearance people had to come back in a different van to take away all the banned weedkiller that FIL was keeping at the back of the garage and his collection of builders rubble. The legal process has been a nightmare because of things PIL didn't do properly years ago.

BIL has decided he can't possibly look after MIL at all so hes arranged for her to go into a care home near him while we're away. We've had weeks and weeks of finding her sitting in the dark worrying that she'll go into the care home and won't come out again. She agreed to the plan but BIL obviously steam rollered her into it.

Anyway we're left everything in BILs "capable" hands.

Thank you all for the comments, it's supported me in feeling that I'm not unreasonable to be cross. I'd agree with you all but BIL who lives with FIL has mental health issues so DH is going to support him. The last thing we can cope with is BIL having another crisis. I have asked DH to tell FIL that he has missed something important for DC. I don't think FIL will actually care though. I think that he is too selfish now.

Will DH genuinely be able to achieve anything positive? Even if it's seizing the opportunity to read his SF the riot act to his face?

That’s a favourite in our house 😁

eta along with ‘play stupid games, win stupid prizes’.

Had to look up that particular acronym but it does seem quite apt!

Maybe it's time for FIL to understand FAFO.

I woukd be inclined to say the same. It’s really hard because you want to make sure your family are ok but your “D”FIL seems to be being rewarded for making poor decisions. Very hard though sometimes not to drop everything and go.

I know it’s easy to say this Mumbles but… why is your dh going?

@Mumbles12 easy to say from the outside but what happens if DH doesn’t go this weekend? It’s hard when they pull rank on the DC, you feel you have no choice but to let someone down.

FIL has had three falls in three days. DH is going to have to miss something important with DC this weekend to go to see him. FIL lives with other son but BIL1 needs support too. FIL has refused to see physiotherapist and has probably done no physio since he moved back home after three months living with us after a previous fall and us insisting that he saw a physio privately and practiced each day. FIL refuses to move nearer us and BIL2 so we can support better and refuses adaptations to the house and refuses carers. He is intransigent but fully competent mentally but expects DH and BIL2 to pick up the pieces after he makes stupid decisions. We agreed that the stress of having him live with us could not be repeated but I can see it is going to happen again, we already had him back for a week at the start of the summer. I'm hacked off that DC is going to be second to FIL again and utterly hacked off that FIL is doing stupid things, one of the falls was doing something unnecessary outside and has caused bad falls in the past. And of course he was not wearing his fall alarm so was only spotted outside on the ground because very kind neighbour spotted him as BIL was out and went to rescue him.
Rant over, just needed to vent. There are no answers because we have had so many discussions with FIL already.

@SockFluffInTheBath so sorry. Here's to our lovely ILs. I wept every day for six months after my FiL died.

@countrygirl99 being the age I am, I have lots of friends with elderly parents. One of them has a mother who has also lost the ability to use the phone - they set her up with an Alexa so they can "drop in" if she's not answering the phone. She is not, however, prone to tidying random items into cupboards, luckily.

@Choconuttolata hope it went well. 💐

@MotherOfCatBoy I presume sod's law applies, if you try to sneak stuff out that is behind other things and out of sight at the back of a cupboard, she'd catch you and raise hell :/
One day someone will invent "Discarnex" or similar which treats hoarding and will deserve every gong they get! PS. TalkTalk are dire (DataLeakDataLeak they should be called). Sky aren't brilliant but we managed to ring up and cancel in ten minutes today 💪

@Dormit the good thing about not taking her walker in is that it can't disappear off with someone else. A friend's NHS wheelchair did (luckily the care manager had a client who somehow had 2 NHS wheelchairs...).

@GnomeDePlume it varies a lot. One hospital Mum was in, neither her nor her partner (who is pretty level headed) were happy, so I went in with a notebook and asked to "talk things through" with the doctors so I could "understand better".
Luckily she was out of there soon after but we had strict instructions that expiring in a ditch was preferred to going back there!

The place she was in at the end of her life weas okay though, by and large, and when she moved ward, it was more because so many different bits of her were going downhill.

Currently our hospital trust delivers its services in different towns. 😫😫😫😳

@BunnyRuddington discharge ALWAYS seems to be (AT BEST) flaky though, wherever you go. I bet I'm not the only one here who took an elderly relative's house keys home from the ward for fear they would be flytipped back at an unprepared and unsuitable house at some random time!

@BestIsWest the uphill-machine at the gym proved very helpful when getting my elderly relative uphill in her wheelchair!

Moderate success today - Sky cancelled, TV licence told she doesn't need one (she doesn't). iPad set up to get ebooks and audio books from her library. Out of date food binned. Hedge trimmer applied with vigour so now we can get up and down the garden path without being One With Nature whether we like it or not.

Still can't persuade her that it would be good to get out and make friends her own age :| ...but... she's thinking about having more daytime care so maybe they could cook her a proper meal? It would be more social interaction anyhow, so a positive thing.

TV licensing should be ashamed of themselves though, the questions DELIBERATELY swap from "Do you watch...?" to "Do you confirm that you don't watch...?" half way through the "I don't need a license" form. There can be no possible legitimate reason for this!! - it's clearly to confuse people, to get them to select the wrong answer so that they go, "oh the form says I do need one," and pay, when they don't.
I may take up witchcraft and curse them.

Yes surely all the local petrol stations are out of fuel.

@BunnyRuddington if you look closely your car has a flat tyre, oh and a flat battery, and anything else that can be flat on a car.

@BestIsWest feet up time 🍷

Sorry about the typos. The edit feature isn’t working for me this evening.