Cockroach Cafe - Autumn

@PrizedPickledPopcorn That sounds very familiar. DM has always been rather jealous of time we spend with MIL, when actually she's been invited along just as often but never wanted to do what we were planning. MIL was widowed quite young and has usually just been happy to either tag along with what we are doing. Even when she was well, DM has always wanted things to be on her own terms so hasn't ever wanted to do that. Now that DM has dementia I think she's just being more open about her jealousy. When we asked her if she wanted to come over this Xmas her immediate response was 'not if that woman [MIL] will be there'. MIL has no other family, and is actually quite pleasant to be around so I won't tell her she can't spend the day with us to avoid upsetting DM.

Your comments re holidays reminded me of the one and only time we attempted a short break with my parents. DD was very small and we invited them to join us for a cheap off-peak long weekend in a small hotel in a quaint coastal town (just the sort of thing my parents would usually love). We imagined a really calm, chilled few days and perhaps even grandparents babysitting one evening whilst we went out for dinner or at least a drink. They seemed thrilled by the idea but over the next few days kept calling with 'problems' with the idea and things they'd found that would be better etc. In the end we were browbeaten in to changing it to a busy caravan park in the school holidays and taking my nieces as well. We barely saw my parents during the day (nieces wanted to do things that were not suitable for DD) then every evening DH was 'encouraged' to take the nieces to the on-site entertainment on his own because parents were tired from the day out and I needed to feed DD and put her to bed. It was the least relaxing break I have ever had, we spent loads more than the nice place we'd suggested and DH and I spent every evening apart.

I think sometimes when we're dealing with elderly parents we can be pushed in to the narrative that we should just give a little bit more because 'they did it for you, now it's your turn' etc. For some of us it can be helpful to remember that actually they have always been fairly unreasonable.

Frustrating to say the least!

It sounds from other posters that the 'everyone else's family' thing is quite common. my DM has never rolled out this line but I guess there is still time.

We’ve had a lot of that, @bigdogpaws . MiL feels hard done by because DM has been here a fair bit, but DM lives alone whereas Mil had FiL and BiL with her, plus other Dc who don’t have other elderly parents to look after.

DM thinks everyone else goes on holiday with their family, big birthday parties etc. However she’s incredibly obstructive and won’t go on holiday with you, you have to go with her- when she wants, where she wants etc. And it’s no holiday as you all know. And frankly I don’t want to spend all my money, energy and time doing it. I’d need a holiday to recover.

In fact I’m ready for a holiday even thinking about it!

The thing is, we all felt very unimportant as DC- boarding school, told not to upset DM by ringing home etc. It’s hard to feel massively obligated now. I mean, I do as much as I can- more than my sibs, but it’s not with enthusiasm!

Apart from anything else, it all feels like a test. A series of hoops to jump through, just to should willing.

I think he was just so wound up in caring for MIL as she couldn't be left for even 5 minutes that he didn't think straight. I would have been more sympathetic if he hadn't insisted on taking her out of the fully funded decent care home less than 10 minutes walk from their house because he wanted her home despite his own health issues that meant emergency hospital admissions a couple of times a year.

Even when DF was alive and both he and DM were relatively well they would do the 'everyone else is doing X' thing. The most common complaint was that my family took MIL out for meals, had her over to visit, took her along on day trips etc and didn't do the same for them. Which on the face of it was true. But they were invited along nearly every time, and many times when MIL was not with us, but always declined. I think the number of invitations probably did decline but only because we knew they would never say yes. It's a shame, and just one of the ways that they made their world very small in their last few healthy years.

That sounds utterly exhausting! Do you think he had no concept of what he was putting his family through or just didn't care? I admit I ask myself the same question about my DM sometimes.

@PrizedPickledPopcorn that also sounds exhausting! Even if you don't take the calls you know they've come in and that is stressful in itself.

@Exhaustedpickle he became incredibly manipulative once Mil needed care. The other one we used to get was "my brother's children take him on outings, no one does that for me". That was because everyone had given up trying because you'd get tickets for football/cricket, book a table at a restaurant/take him to the pub to play darts or something else he'd like, arrange for someone to sit with MIL etc and then he would phone the family member sitting every couple of minutes and within 30 minutes he'd be wanting to go home in case MIL got upset or her tea wasn't made exactly as he would. I think the record anyone lasted was when DH took him to a 20-20 cricket match 45 minutes away and they only saw the first ball. And that took some persuading.

Mil doesn’t seem to be speaking to DH at the moment. We’re not sure if there’s a problem, if she’s cross, or she’s just busy. We’ve spoken to FiL, and we know BiL was there recently. So no emergencies, just a bit odd.

Meanwhile mine was ringing through the night about ordering sandwiches. I keep mine on silent at all times, otherwise I’d live in a permanent Adrenalin rush.

I'm sorry @countrygirl99 that sounds really distressing and manipulative.

It is hard to remember a time 'before' these days.

We used to get that from FIL if DH wasn't doing what he wanted. As the only thing that would of made him happy would be for DH to miraculously become a girl and give up everything to move in to their tiny bungalow with no spare bedroom to look after him and MIL it was fairly frequent.
Last night we went to a gig that a childhood friend of DH was playing at. They haven't met for many years and in the bar beforehand they were reminiscing. It was good to be reminded what FIL was like before MILs stroke. The last 8 years of his life do dominate our memories.

My DSis spoke to the care home to ask if they could get our DM an appointment with a doctor who can refer her for counselling so that feels like a step in the right direction. Thank you @rookiemere for suggesting we got the care home more involved in managing DM's anxiety.

Today's update is that DM is now talking about wanting to end her life. She has talked about it before, but not for a few months. She wouldn't actually do it and I don't think she'd be able to anyway given her current living arrangements, so as awful as it sounds I am not worried from a practical point of view. But it is an awful thing to hear your Mum say and it's awful for her to feel it. I'm not sure how best to support her - other than requesting GP and counselling input.

For my ER, our preferred funeral directors was one of the pieces of info the care home wanted to have on file. I’m not sure it was from when she moved in, possibly later on as she declined, but they definitely spoke to us about it, quite a while before she was on end of life care.

it did make things easier - my mother who was the other attorney actually went and prepaid for a funeral as she was worried about paying for it - even though I said the bank would release funds , and if they didn’t I could easily pay for it and claim it back later (I was executor). However sorting it all in advance made her feel better at the time and did make it easier when the time came, as the home knew who to call etc.

@rookiemere being planned for funerals is sensible. I have the number of one of the local funeral directors in my phone. At some point I may want it in a hurry as the care home needs to have deceased residents removed from the premises promptly.

Ultimately, yes, I want to be allowed to die once I am no longer able to make my own decisions.

One of my issues with DB is that he keeps saying DM shouldnt be allowed to die of this or that because it will be horrible (normally in some unspecified way). Except by doing this DB is blocking the more 'gentle' ways to die. So DM keeps being treated for things.

I will take on board what people say about not only allowing morphine. I have had morphine and am one of the lucky people who had no bad reaction to it. Apart from post surgery being very determined that the dog wanted an ice cream.

Definitely choose a funeral director - and let the company know they are preferred as it makes an out of hours death simpler. We used a locally based company and found they have managed to stay in business because they are very good and pretty transparent with pricing.

Not cold at all - there will be a lot of decisions to make and this is one you can make in advance to help your future self 💐

I've always had Do Not Disturb on but have actually switched it off now with dad being in a home, I had their number listed as priority to bypass DND but they called an ambulance for him in the night and the paramedics tried calling me on their phone and I missed the calls because it wasn't one of my known numbers. Mum doesn't ring in the night though just a stream of texts so muting deals with that. If she starts I will have to think again. She is one of those people who only needs about 4 hours sleep at night <sighs>

I've had DKA (I didn't know that's what was happening or I would have got treatment earlier) and it wasn't that bad, not painful or anything just nausea and tiredness/breathlessness. The ICU stay and the recovery was a bitch, but if you want to be allowed to die from it then there are worse ways to go.

She's rung me twice while I've been reading this thread!

It's amazing isn't it how having a pair of balls protects you from this stuff. I wonder if I can order myself a set on Amazon. 🤔

And I’ve stopped replying immediately to texts or WhatsApp. Let several hours go by.

Funnily enough she doesn’t like bothering Goldenballs because he’s so busy (being a man) so she wouldn’t keep trying to phone or text him!

I never even thought of that! Does the person ringing just have the call go to voicemail or does it ring out?

Do not disturb setting on the phone. I simply don’t receive the phone calls during my work/commute time or during the night.

Thank you. I turned my phone off last night and felt guilty when I woke up and had a text saying she needed to talk to someone. That was 10.30pm and then I had a missed call from 11pm.

She does ring my DSis a lot too so I have that support though it's not nice for her either.

@ElderlyDilemmas that sounds really stressful. It's so hard to make the decision to ignore when it could be a genuine emergency but I think in the interests of sanity it has to be done sometimes. My DM rings me a lot "by accident" (I'm not entirely convinced...) so if I answered every call I'd never be off the phone and it sounds like you're in a similar situation.

@rookiemere you don't sound cold. You sound like someone trying to get through the impossible.

I also had a chat with chat GPT about the logistics part of it, where people held wakes locally etc that was quite helpful.