Caring for elderly parents? Drop in for support, hand holding and whatever you need

[thesandwich]

Continuing the long running threads for anyone juggling elderlies and everything else. Loads of wisdom, support and the odd laugh...
How are you all doing?
How is everyone coping with the extra teens with exam challenges?

I'm purposely making no plans for Xmas that Include mum
She knows she is welcome anytime over the holiday but I'm not running around after her
I've got plans for 2 weekends in December and dh and i have planned a day out too
Prob won t see my siblings over Xmas as I won't be Making the effort this year and phoning/texting/making arrangements
Im looking forward to it!

Ha Ha @mrsreynolds I have the same conversation with my brother about him 'not liking hospitals'. I've had my mum every Xmas for the past 20 years, and every year I suggest this is the year it could be his turn.

My brother is forced goes to his pils every year
My sister stays at home but it's not a nice atmos there
So mum will prob be here
Again

I'm dropping in to say hello. My mother is 87, on oxygen for pulmonary fibrosis. She fell two months ago, was in hospital for one months then went home. I stayed with her for two very long weeks, then got a live in carer, but mum is stubbornly insisting that she wants to manage on her own. But she won't be able to. I'm tearing my hair out with worry, but I cannot stay any longer with her again as I get so miserable and resentful. Ho hum

Hi Orchard we feel your pain. I get that it is hard for them to accept that they can no longer live 100% independently, but us stepping in to shore them up isn't a sustainable solution for many of us either.

Thanks. The carer goes on 1 Dec, so I think I'll step back for a few days after that, mum needs to realise for herself that she can't manage.

Sadly it often takes a crisis for them to accept they can't manage

Sadly it often takes a crisis for them to accept they can't manage

Sadly it often takes a crisis for them to accept they can't manage

Hi all. Huge sympathies to everyone- crisis has happened here with dm after a calm year following fils death in January. We were beginning to relish our retirement☹️.
Dm fell and has fractured a bone in her leg.... long day in a and e and she told them she could manage... looong night stayin* at hers and several night calls plus she fell out of bed in the morning....... so I am struggling to get her carers to do more , try and mobilise some support from goldenballs sibling, and sort respite.. at the only weekend this dd is home from uni with no work to do.....ARRRRGH!!!!!

Aarrgghhh indeed!
Sorry to hear this sandwich x

Sandwich, could you get a private care company in to help with other tasks?

Oh, I'm sorry, Sandwich. I know what you mean about supposed to be relishing retirement.

Thanks all. We have some carers but they are limited and doing a bit, plus cleaner and gardener.... dh being fab but i’m Knackered after two nights there. Fracture clinic tomoz which should help and checking out respite homes. And the siblings? The odd text and of course dm sounds wpquite perky on the phone to them😜😜😜.

😩😩😩😩

Sandwich, I am sorry to hear this. I am only too aware that things may been to be settled and "sorted", but that it can all go wrong in a instant. Perhaps we should coin a word meaning "fear of THE phone call".

If there is rainy day money, I would strongly recommend good quality convalescent care. After my mum broke her hip she spent five weeks in a luxury nursing home. I met someone there whose mother had had several hospital admissions and who was in the habit of giving her mother two week convalescent stays in order to build her up ready to return home. Lots of nice food, company, activities, and nursing staff to deal with some of the post op stuff. This woman described it as a cruise ship that never went in to port. Easy to believe you were on holiday and to enjoy the pampering. I loved the way I could join my mother for lunch, essential when I had set off at 6.00am to get my mum to a morning hospital appointment.

It bought the breathing space we needed to find out what capacity would come back, and to put care arrangements in place. But it was really expensive.

oh please may I join you? DM is 87, has had severe osteoporosis and osteoarthritis for 15+ years. DF died 21 years ago so she moved to live near me a couple of years after that (great in theory).

Won't go into all the long and boring details, but I am getting to the end of my tether, and the fear when the phone goes is ridiculous. In theory I'm relatively lucky: work pt from home, both DDs at uni now so not quite the sandwich generation many are in. OTH, she is difficult: will not engage with help apart from cleaner and gardener once a week; a ridiculous snob; very deaf so finds social engagement difficult anyway; 4 falls this year so far, 3 involving paramedics and the most recent with a potential skull fracture.

GP surgery not that interested; every time she speaks to anyone medical she goes all Captain's Wife and is very patronising but also very stoic so people think she's wonderful (which they do on short term acquaintance) and so help is slow to happen.

sorry bit of an essay!! but I do feel all your pain.

Yolo, we have crossed MN paths/threads before. Welcome to THE thread for the sandwich generation.

It will have been covered before, but guilt is pointless. And selfishness, ore rather self-preservation, is good. Everyone is relying on you, so you need to pace yourself, emotionally and physically. And to some extent, or in some circumstances, you have to become the parents to your own parent. If they are behaving like a demanding toddler, and the cost to you is too much, then don't negotiate. What you say goes. If you need to delegate, then delegate, etc.

Obviously easier said than done.

GP surgery not that interested; every time she speaks to anyone medical she goes all Captain's Wife and is very patronising but also very stoic so people think she's wonderful (which they do on short term acquaintance) and so help is slow to happen.

This is very familiar Yolo. I find myself having to explain to overworked NHS staff that yes, she may appear capable and with-it on the surface, and able to tick many boxes, but that actually she has dementia and is very good at masking it. The series of questions that they do to test memory drive me potty - knowing the dates of WW2 are all well and good, but the other questions like who is the PM she can blag a pass mark by saying things like oh I'm not interested in politics. I know that it is actually because she can't remember, but on the surface it sounds a reasonable excuse.

thank you need and monkey (short hand!), its nice to know that I am not alone in this. my DB just came on Friday and stayed til today, he's a bloody saint because I can do an hour max before I go mad. OTH he lives 200 miles away and so does it 4 times a year. Usually he comes with my DSIL and DM complains wholeheartedly (DSIL is really lovely, but hippyish) and DM gets uppity. They have their own issues - ie babysitting for 4 grandkids on a regular basis, but retired and run a business, and their DD had a terrible stroke earlier in the year aged just 29. So they cant do much but are enormously supportive and they do come. I just think: she's 87, she's not actually ill (ie no terminal disease) and the thought of this going on for potentially another 10 years makes my heart sink. She's not happy as she is, and I can only see it getting worse. Today I have found 3 local private caring agencies - so she can get a 'naice' lady in for an hour a day, plus 3 befriending agencies which do phone calls and visits for a nice chat. She will hate them all. But I just cant bloody do it!! I go round every night I am home, and there is nothing to talk about apart from her health. she cant maintain interest in my life, or my DDs, and finds fault with everything she possibly can. sorry, rant over!

My DM's mum lasted til she was 99. My DM is now 89. She may well last another 10 years, but I doubt I will.

I hear you monkey

Oh, yolo, I feel your pain. I'm in the same situation, I'm at the end of my tether too. I'm an hour away from my mother and I dread picking up the phone when I see her number.......what's she going to complain about now?

spoke to DM about an hour ago, she sounds very low "you will come round tonight wont you, it makes such a difference". The thing is I cant see any way of her becoming happy again; socially isolated, in constant pain, and housebound. Spoke to GP yesterday who wasnt very interested but has at least agreed to refer to the Intermediate Care Team again to see if they can get her moving after last week's fall. I can do the practical stuff, but actually she wants me to sit and listen while she moans, and I'm crap at that and don't do sympathy much either - I am much more one to try and change things. She would say our relationship is wonderful, but actually I think it's going from ok to quite a lot worse, and horribly, although she needs me so much now I am getting more and more resentful of the fact that I went to boarding school at 10 while she had a pretty lovely life up until my father died. Not to say I havent had a lovely life, but I made it myself. sorry, thinking out loud!

My dad is 79 and has just been diagnosed with emphysema. I need to get carers as I already care for my mum with dementia. Struggling to get to grips with what I have to do?? Who to call? My Dad can no longer go out and can't really stand up due to breathing issues.