Cockroach cafe - Spring to Summer 2026

God, that’s so tough. It’s EOL - proper pain relief is vital if needed. I’m so sorry you’re going through this. It sounds unbelievably difficult.

@GnomeDePlume the guidance is generally up to a max of 4 weeks for terminal agitation/delirium. Generally via syringe driver, though injections can be used.

Levomeprazine may be used in conjunction with midazolam as an antisickness agent and for restlessness.

Haloperidol may also be an option (antipsychotic, also used in palliative care for delirium and terminal agitation).

Midazolam is generally better tolerated and with fewer risks of cardiac complications than haloperidol. Both haloperidol and levomeprazine prolong the QT interval, which carries risk of arrythmia and heart attacks. So actually if this is what DB is worried about, midazolam will be the safer option. The main issue with it is it's a benzo, so risk of dependence, so it can only be given short term.

@TheBroonOneAndTheWhiteOne do you know how long midazolam can be given over please? DM is, I think, in her final days but not her final hours.

DB doesnt want DM to be given it yet. He is a total prevaricator. I have told the CH that I am happy for DM to be given any or all medication. Unfortunately DB is the person they see most.

You might find you would have to pay for the carers to do most of that .
" Provided , social carers " do not do shopping & cleaning . At least not in this area .

@GnomeDePlume I'd talk to them and say that you're sure that your mother is distressed and you'd like her to have the midazolam.

I cannot fault DB in terms of doing the heavy lifting for DM. He visits DM daily, genuinely cares about her.

The difficulty now is that DB has very entrenched views about medication. DM now spends a lot of her limited waking time in quiet distress, tearful but not loud. In the EOL pack is a medication which would help relax her. But DB doesnt want DM to be given any medication other than paracetamol.

CH staff are a bit cowed by DB. I have made it plain to DB that if I am asked I will agree to DM being given any or all of the medication in her EOL pack.

DB seems quite happy with this so I suspect it is a responsibility thing. If I agree to DM having her medication increased and DM then dies it will be my fault. This doesnt bother me. But I know DB is frightened that some nameless authority will hold him responsible.

@Choux thank you! Aha! Sibling 1 probably knows this, which is why he’s now ‘declined’ this option.

However, if we got legal advice on all the different options there’s a clear picture.

But the picture for my mum is a flat near us, and I want her to be happy, even though it will be some work for Mr Monkey and I. Thinking ahead…There’s stuff we are happy to share with carers: laundry, cleaning, organising online shopping, taking her shopping, taking her out, dropping round, checking on food and hydration, but I will draw the line at intimate care (which she doesn’t need) And the moment it gets too much for us that’s it, it’s far more input from a care company. Her living near us - which she’s already said “I would like to live near you, but is that too much of an imposition, tell me” - takes a lot of pressure off us from travelling here and we will have a life again. Sibling 2 is more caring and far less interested in £. Sibling 1 may have to lump it.

@ManchesterMonkeyif your mum uses her money to build a granny flat at your brother’s house that could be seen as deprivation of assets ie giving money away when there’s a reasonable expectation she could need care in the near future.

I would try to get your younger brother to see that what your mum actually wants is a good, practical idea. Then it’s three of you - including the person whose life and money it actually is! - in agreement and DB1 will just have to get used to it happening.

@countrygirl99 that’s appalling. So, he just rides roughshod over you and your brother? I doubt very much he’s going to be able to organise it without your help. And if you’ve got him blocked.

Who are the feck are these men? Sibling 1 has always been arrogant, but I actually always had him down as compassionate. Not seeing that side of him right now.

my mum has a well stocked drinks cabinet so making mojitos to cheer myself up.

@TheBroonOneAndTheWhiteOne he's going to find it difficult to organise from 5 hours away as mum never answers the phone so I think even if he meant it at the time he's unlikely to put in the required effort.

Oh Lord @countrygirl99 I remember you posting about that at the time.

Do you think he'll really have done it?

@ManchesterMonkey with goldenballs I think it's as more about a power trip. He was a bully as a kid and never grew out of it. 3 weeks ago he announced mum was going into a really crummy care home (it's the easiest one to get her in, never had a wait list for a reason). Whether DB2 and I like it or not. Since then he hasn't communicated with DB2 and I have him blocked so we've no idea whether he's actually done anything or whether he was just trying to get a reaction.

@TheBroonOneAndTheWhiteOne quite! It’s jaw dropping.

@countrygirl99 FFS. BARKING ORDERS? And you’re the one doing all the work. It’s all about money, isn’t it?

Sibling 1 conducts any sibling meeting like a board meeting and talks over me.

My royal kick off this morning means younger brother is coming up for two days this evening. He’s coming up after finishing work at 11pm so he does grasp the importance. I hope his input will be more than sorting out out of date food!

He’s a more on it about this house not being suitable. In fact, he suggested a granny flat at his place. According to Sibling 1 that was great as ‘it would add value to his house’ Sibling 1 is the owner. Then the plan changed. 💰

I just want my mum to be safe. We all do TBH but some options are safer than others. And some options are better for Sibling 2 and I, unless of course Sibling 1 would like our mum to relocate to Europe and live in the granny flat that he and my sister in law have built for grannies aka her mum, who also lives in England and has been there for a month….

He was surprised when I ended up going NC with him

🤣 they just don't get it, do they.
Arseholes.

Good for you. Bloody brothers. One of mine is ok but he is self employed and has a disabled DC so has limited capacity. The other one (the one mum moved to be near) bogged off to the other end of the country once he retired and thought being sole POA gave him the right to bark orders at me. I live an hour away which is apparently nothing and I should be doing everything including making sure she takes her meds morning and evening so she doesn't have to pay for carers/cleaner/gardener. He was surprised when I ended up going NC with him.

@countrygirl99

I can’t stay beyond the end of next week, as I will have been here for six weeks.

I am planning to go home on Saturday.

I have counselling on Monday 11 May, which is a direct result of this BS. And an eye hospital appointment on Thursday 14 May.

The council funded care company are supposed to ring and come round this week. I’m going to email the social worker today to chase and copy those two DOLTS in.

There’s going to be a serious conversation about taking stuff on. Some basic admin like GOOGLING support isn’t beyond the wit of two grown men living in places where there IS the internet.

My mum has now put on 5lbs and is over 7 stone, but still very thin. This is a consequence of me being a feeder and cooking tons of good food for the freezer.

Euro Brother had the audacity to call me FUCKING FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE the other day in a WhatsApp.

@ManchesterMonkey what would your brother do if you said you were moving back home in 7 days he needs to sort out care?

@funnelfan I believe every day to be the saint day of St Useless Brother.

Although I’m increasingly realising that my awkward brother is able to flip from Exceedingly Useless to Exceedingly Competent Senior Executive In A Multi-National depending on the task in hand.

For example, when he flew over from Europe the other weekend whilst I was in Scotland on another family mission (partner’s nephew and mental health crisis) he emptied and sorted out the kitchen cupboards and chucked out of date tins away.

Obviously, with an 80 year old frail mother this is a priority.

@bigdogpaws a house sale would release money for savings as has no savings as she blew it all her annuity (good luck to her, I say, but she’s been great at earning money, but utterly shit as administering it as my dad did that)

She’d have to pay for local authority care, but she actually doesn’t need that much (a hair wash and a shower once a week, probably, or buy in private care. I think it’s simply about money with Sibling 1.

And definitely a view that I can provide care free of charge or at least supervise it HERE (miles from anywhere, my home, work, friends, social life, my lovely elderly neighbours who I help with a coffee and laughs, and my PARTNER)

My brother very kindly offered himself as ‘respite care’.

Fuck that shit.

I’m cool with the fact that if my mum lived round the corner - we’d be popping in, but it’s a damn sight more convenient than here - and she likes doing much of what we like: theatre, cinema, heritage, and lots of meals out.

Through our friends who have older parents, our older friends who she really likes, and my partner’s lovely bit of his family she would very quickly build up an independent network. My best pal adores her.

My partner has working class roots, our neighbourhood isn’t as leafy as here and my brother is a fully fledged snob. For example, we both did Oxbridge, but although he lives in a country with incredible higher education (top 50 universities ) he thinks his three daughters (bilingual) should study at Oxbridge. All of it is inevitably about him. Plus weird power dynamic of him renting out his English house to our youngest flake of a brother.

Ah, if I had to deal with mine every weekend that would indeed be the case, but he spends much of his working life off-shore. I’m the default DM-wrangler like everyone else on here - which publicly is because poor suffering DB is doing his best to earn money to support his ever expanding roster of children. And privately because “you’re better at that kind of thing funnel”.

To give him some credit, he’s very good at the hands on caring of mum and dealt with code browns without letting on until I had to also deal with them. He’s just like so many of the men I read about in the relationships boards - where he gets it from I don’t know because our own dad wasn’t like that at all.

Useless brothers weekend every weekend from March to October here. He has a caravan in a location where his phone doesn’t work. The same phone he switches off at night. It’s just taken for granted that I’m around to pick up the pieces.

To be honest, in some families (mine) every weekend is 'useless brothers weekend'!

@ManchesterMonkey Is there a reason why your brother doesn't want money released from your mum's house? I think we've established it's unlikely to make a difference for inheritance tax. Is it because if it's cash savings she would need to use it if she needs to pay for care, whereas if all her asset value is tied up in the house only her cash savings will count? Or is he worried that she'll be spending it on other things and there will be less to inherit?
If the former, he does have a point but if she's relying on care to be paid for by social services it will only be for the care that they decide she needs when she needs it. This may well be less than she might want (or not in the way she wants and with limited choice about who provides it). If she has her own savings to pay for care there is much more choice. I assume he's expecting that if she wants more care than social services will pay for, you will be the one that provides it free of charge.

The good thing is that as your mum has capacity, even if the brothers have LPA, what she says goes and she doesn't need their approval. It sounds like her living closer to you, and having some cash available for us as she sees fit, would be far better for her wellbeing and make it much easier for you and your partner to support her. I'd just be careful that the brothers don't try to get her to hand over 'their share' of the cash which might make things difficult if she ever did need help with the cost of care.

Is it useless brothers weekend? Not elderly related but my DB is staying at my little holiday chalet this weekend with his kids from his first marriage. I spent Saturday morning doing changeover and left the last of the laundry (some towels) drying on the line for them. Did he bring them in? No. Did it rain? Of course it did. Did he think they were hung up for decoration? Errr, I didn’t say anything about them with my other instructions (how the boiler works and where the bus stop is etc) so he left them alone. FFS.

And I bet there is an assumption by my brother blocking my mum’s wishes that I will be leaving my estate to his three daughters. I will be investigating legacy giving to the Cat’s Protection League in the morning. 😹

Thanks everyone. I really appreciate it.

Yes, reading replies in the cold light of day it’s as ever about my brother and money. He’s LOADED. His wife, much as I like her, is the kind of woman who would never buy a round of drinks. I’m skint and ageing in a sector that is ageist as fuck.

But I’d rather see my mum safe. He simply doesn’t want that money released from the house.

However, I’m not willing to sacrifice my mum’s safety. Frankly, if something bad happens it will be me and my partner supporting her recovery from something like a broken wrist or worse.

All three of we siblings have Power of Attorney on health, and I think money, although I strongly suspect my (stupidly optimistic late father) would have made my brother who’s the block on a possible move the attorney as he is a ‘high flier’ (FFS)

I have my health documents kept safely. Youngest brother has lost his and seems unable to contact the Office of Attorney to get a copy. Grasping brother DID find his, but was ‘unbothered’ about dropping it off with my mum’s GP when he was last here. So, boys, just leave the health stuff to me. There is a refusal to be responsible for any aspect of care and well-being, just leaving it to me.

And not one phone call to my mum this weekend. They really are a pair of selfish pricks.

I never thought my brothers would behave like this.

Trying to work out the best course of action.