Caring for elderly relatives? Pop in for support, a hand hold, advice, whatever you need.

[picklemepopcorn]

Carrying on from previous thread, IF I can work out how to link...

Come and offload your worries and frustration here, and share your experience and hard won wisdom with the rest of us!

This is the point where I have to announce that our local NHS trust, East Kent, is officially unable to organise a piss up in a brewery.

DB and I both got phone calls yesterday to say that she would be discharged today; specialist nursing team in place to asses her 12 times over 3 days to ensure long term care plan. To cut a long story short, the specialist nursing team have never heard of her, and she's not their bag anyway as she has a non-weight bearing injury and needs to be with a different team; the different team mentioned has no capacity to deal with her. DB has travelled 200 miles by train today as she was expecting to be discharged and a bit anxious about staying home alone. No one has a fucking clue.

I eventually got through to the ward about half an hour ago, spoke to the nurse in charge whose English on the phone was so incoherent I had to speak to someone else. The someone else was Dr. Chen, English great, but unfortunately this is his first day on the job (literally, he a brand new doctor doesnt even know his way round the bloody building yet and first week of Aug is when the newbies get a go) and he know nothing, the grand total of fuck all. Jesus!!!!

Varney - that bloke in on the buses? (old). Iago was awfully jealous wasnt he? Momentum quite pretty, Mo for short has good Labour heritage!!

Oh Yolo! If you wrote a book, no one would believe it. Would you be happier if she was in a home? If she's afraid to stay alone, and DB has already been up once for no good reason, maybe she needs to reconsider?

pickle she wont go into a home - and I do understand that. so she will have to bedblock til someone gets it right. I've already rescued her from stalag 41 (aka nursing home) with dire results. This time around the NHS needs to get its shit together and arrange the care plan. if she then chooses to supplement with private help, that's up to her. Whether she hates it in hospital or not, she has to stay until there is a proper discharge plan in place. We've been promised all sorts over the last 8 weeks, and NONE of it has materialised!

That is so awful yolo you poor thing- and poor dB. Total incompetence. Sending extra 🍷🍷🍫🍫🍫🍫.

whatever how are you doing? Sending an extra hug.
And emergency supplies for pickle

yes pickle how are you doing? (probs silly question...)

I'm ok, thank you. We are trying to balance her need to be out and about all the time, especially in the sun, with our need to avoid getting overheated. She's fine, so it's not too hot . Sadly, knowing she isn't hot isn't helping me feel any cooler!!

She's ready to spend a lot of money on smartening up the house and she's ready to move. She's terribly busy out and about but she never sees anyone. She's picking a fight with various professionals that are unfortunate enough to have to deal with her, she gets on with everyone

... she's in good form in other words.

DB is moving abroad for a few months, and she's most concerned about getting the curtains she lent him back before he goes. Etc. Etc.

The chocolate is good, though, and we've got food (not always a given, here).

🌺🌺🍫🍫

I'm hitting the chocolate 🍫.

How are we all doing this?? Is there a hope in hell that any of us will remain sane at the end of all this??? You are all amazing.

Today I'm angry. Lots of anger and the need to do something to shock everyone instead of constantly doing the things / behaving in the way that everyone else wants me to.

Day at work was bizarrely normal but came home to the usual domestic demands and THE most irritatingly irritating blasted sympathy card. It had all the usual about what a marvellous friend she had been and then the person decided to lecture me on how she did love me but that she had a very difficult childhood. Oh right that's ok then and did I actually ask for their opinion???

Sorry I shouldn't be writing this now! I'll regret it in the morning!!!

Thank you all so much for virtual hugs, doesn't feel like we are strangers at all

pickle and whatever - take all the comfort you need from choclate, wine, gin, flowers, cake. and we'll all be with you in this weird weird journey. I honestly feel like its a parallel universe - Friday I drove to Peterborough in insane heat with 2 of my dearest friends, Saturday we attended a festival in honour of her dead daughter (which is weird in itself) Sunday we drove home, had the most beautiful swim in the sea and DH cooked an amazing meal which we ate outside in the garden. And today... we are in the Kafka-esque universe of today's NHS. I'm a huge fan of the NHS, never had anything but amazing care through 2 childbirths, 2 cancers, a broken ankle. But give them an old person and it's like wtf are they doing??? Sorry, ranting must go to bed soon!

Curtains though, curtains. Priorities, right? My DB has gone to bed with DM's cat which is prob nice, if rather too warm, for them both.

Yolo it's the night for ranting you go for it!!
Parallel universe sums it up very well. So pleased you had some opportunities to escape over the weekend. I feel like I've been dropped into someone else's life and I'd quite like to just go back to mine now please.

Right so mum has definitely pulled out of her house purchase and has announced she's going to stay with her older (demented) sister up a wonky staircase 2 hours away in a different direction. This is news to our cousins and her sister's immensely patient but also elderly partner. A 'wtf' call from my sister resulted in the gem that she hadn't really meant it and would just look for something she likes better than the flat she was going to buy. In a place other than anywhere any of us live. Which we haven't found in six months of looking. She will probably lose her own buyer, which are like hen's teeth in her part of the world, and end up exactly where she is now. At the top of stone steps with a dodgy hip and failing memory 100 miles from me.

annan arent you meant to be on hols??? l reckon Lewis Carroll and Alice in Wonderland had nothing on all this... big strength xx

Annan, would it be at all possible for someone to threaten her with a nursing home? Worry out loud that she'll end up in a home if her house is unsuitable.?
But yes, try and forget it all and enjoy your holiday.

Whatever there will be more weird days. It's odd, adjusting.

Yolo, that sounds like a lovely weekend (apart from the bitter sweet memorial festival).

What's life like for you, Sandwich?

Thank you Pickle and Yolo. Hope everyone has a better day today x

When my mum has had bursts of energy in the recent past she would blitz parts of her house and bin things. And then forget she's done it, and decide someone's taken things (usually me). She now keeps asking where her Irish leprechaun fridge magnet is, trying to work out who must have taken it, and getting them to return it. It is something of a low point to have my own mother thinking I (or anyone else) would steal the bloody thing. So I have been searching for a replacement on Ebay, and that is depressing in itself, as they are hideous, if not malevolent, bloody things.

As someone else says upthread, I have walked into someone else's life and want my own back please.

It's so hard to talk about this IRL as dealing with a parent with dementia is just something to be bourne by an individual with dignity in our society. But the reality is it is hell and I need to offload.

Annan, a family conference without her where you decide:

1. If she stays where she is despite your help/advice you are in no way responsible for what might happen. And that you are not required to facilitate her staying there. Then tell her, perhaps putting in in the form of a letter. I had a similar situation with my mother, except I was against her and my brother, who was also in complete denial. No keys, no neighbour contacts and a flat that was totally unsuitable. So it was a conversation I had with my own family. Do what you can to pursuade her that moving now is better than moving later. If need be make up some sort of back pain or other illlness that will prevent you from making the journey regularly. (I had 100 mile round trips - still do - and they are a killer.)

1. Have things set up for when the inevitable happens. Is there a POA. That is what you really need to focus on. Speak to your local SS and visit sheltered and care options.

My mother fell when she was outside, but apparently got stuck in the bath once and thought she would die there. Had she done I would have felt bad about the panic and pain she would have gone through, but there was nothing I could have done to prevent it. And it would have saved her from the long slow progress of Alzheimers (six year in post-fall with up to another decade to go) which has robbed her of so much dignity.

Love the Irish leprechaun fridge magnets. Perhaps you could get her an army. DM has a gaudy Murano glass clown with a bit missing which she bought in a jumble sale and loves. (She also has lots of nice things but I think, magpie like, the colours appeal.) We manged to get a smaller version when we were in Venice. She loves the fact there is now a younger brother, though has no idea how he turned up. Plotting different versions of the clown's life stories is a good topic/diversion of conversation.

"the person decided to lecture me on how she did love me but that she had a very difficult childhood"

whatever, I would park it. Writing condolences is really hard. I had to do one yesterday because a lovely lovely friend living on the other side of the world died of cancer. The stuff all happened on Facebook with so great pictures and some lovely memories. But really hard to write anything without sounding clumsy, cliched or patronising. From a distance it sounds as if she was trying to acknowledge that her memories might be different from yours. And if not, the emotions you are feeling perhaps needed to be released as part of the grieving process. She was the trigger, but if not her it would have been someone else.

Take care all.

whatever say whatever you need here. Rage, vent, whatever you need. You will get sympathy, hugs and chocolate, wine and gin.
Nota yolo sending sympathy too.
Pickle hope the chocolate mountain is holding up.thanks for asking..... things here are ok, I think because I have been guarding boundaries. Dm had cataract op a few weeks back, requiring 4 drops a day. I have refused to take this on, despite numerous guilt trips and knowing the carer is driving past my house while I’m in bed..😮. Dm moaning like hell about the agency lunch carers( not her saintly regular morning one) I have stepped back and realised my siblings will not change or support....
tales from the front line.... post doc this morning, quick whiz around small local supermarket- big treat for dm in wheelchair. “Faggots” she declares loudly near the frozen meat. Very flustered male assistant comes across and says to me that he thought it was an insult addressed to him as he’s gay....... then proceeds to find faggots..... rock n roll here!!

Oh dear, miscommunication between the generations!

We're meeting my sister for dinner this eve. DM is happy to go anywhere, doesn't want to decide. Because I'm not stupid, I give her a few options. Oh yes, she says, that sounds nice. So I confirm one with DSis. Where are we going then, asks DM. Oh, I don't want to go there. I've told you where I want to go...
So it's a specific restaurant but only if they have x and y on tonight, just rang and they don't publish the menu until 4pm.
Or another one I don't want to go to. Etc. Sigh.

Thank you very much for responding - I'm just moaning really. The one really good thing about all this is that my brother, sister and I are on very similar pages at long last - none of us would blame the others if things go badly wrong.

We do have a financial poa but not health/welfare - she wouldn't entertain it and I would say she always has capacity for her decisions at the moment.

I feel bad posting because really she is in great shape compared to others. Still stressful though.

Oh pickle that sounds hard to take.

Thank you so much. Support and wise words much appreciated.