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!

DM, the latest: I was away getting pissed with friends last night, got home, went round about mid-day. She fell over at 5.30 am - because she wont do as she is told, ie call someone if she wants the commode, or - the physio's preferred option - use her incontinence pants at night (because she takes sleeping pill and painkillers at night).

She has huge open grazes on the back of her hands and some facial bruising.

DB refused ambulance for her on grounds of distress, no real pain etc, so now we have to wait for duty GP to phone to instruct district nurse to dress wounds. District nurse supposed to be coming anyway, but who knows when?

So not sustainable; progress being made on carers but no single (female) person will be able to lift her when she falls again. Next stage I guess is another disastrous fall and then she goes to hospital and dies there, or will have to go to a care home for her own safety, where she will be miserable and die anyway.

And I have the hangover from hell!! (well worth it tho) all round

Yo,o so glad you had a good night out. But as you say, she is a real danger to herself. It’s like waiting for the car crash- while she is wrecking the lives of those she allegedly cares about. No wisdom but extra hair of the dog....🍷🍷

So basically she is falling to the point of injury every 24 hours pretty much always at night, and it's just the level of injury that varies. God this is impossible yolo i have no idea how you are coping but glad for the

only coping because DB is a fucking saint, kids are being brilliant, DH is keeping homefires burning, and I am lucky enough to work from home freelance so therefore no employer to chase my tail or threaten me with job loss.

latest plan - DH idea; is to get her a hospital bed which can move her up and down (and therefore more comfortable) and most importantly has side rails so she cannot get out without assistance. will discuss with DB tonight as I am sleeping round there again for moral support for him - cant in all conscience leave him alone with her for another night. chin chin chaps!

Its a good idea but tbh they don't often use side bars in hospital because people manage to get part of the way over and fall from a greater height, or some manage to get limbs trapped even though it's not supposd to be possible... in hospital they usually put the bed base as low as possible, swing it against the wall and put a mattress etc next to it. But it might be right for your mum: has she had an OT assessment at home?

Last night was fun. She was asleep, DB and I sitting downstairs chatting and I heard her pressing the buttons on her phone so went to listen. She was onto 999 saying she had been screaming for hours, was paralysed and starving... she's turning into one of those statistics of people who misuse emergency services.

Off to buy her a bed for downstairs today, will aim for a low one - that's a good idea. Desperate for a night in my own bed!! Still Labrador Rescue lady coming this morning, so that is my positive for the day.

Wow. I guess she will go on the emergency services blacklist if there is one. It won't help if she has a genuine need to ring 999 in the future.

Oh Yolo! Just when you would think you'd seen everything! How will she surprise you next, I wonder?

Oh Mrs8, that's not on is it!

if someone else was writing this I would think they were exaggerating, but I am so not, and if anything am not putting in full horrors because so long and ongoing.

so today we are waiting for GP still; also waiting to hear if cobbled together 24 hour care arrangement will work (2 people, one for the day and one for the night). spanner in works is that local enablement team say that we cant have them AND private care - ok fair enough, I get that they can use their resources better elsewhere. but at the moment we have no confirmation of private care and no evidence that it will actually work so if enablement team pull out now and it all falls apart then god knows what we do.

her anxiety is sky high, she can no longer remember very much. next possible moves are psych assessment and head scan (she denies banging head in any of recent falls but who knows). DB wants to go home tomorrow, cant blame him, but then when it all falls apart.... I want to ask him to stay a night longer but in all honesty I cant do that, expecially when she is imploring him not to leave her, she is dying blah blah.

I am a horrible person because the more needy she gets the less I can stand being near her, let alone giving her the love she wants.

Oh dear Mrs8! You do what works best for you, stand your ground. If it's threatening to turn into a row, tell her you'll take her next time. But don't.

Yolo. Teflon by the gallon just doesn't seem adequate.

Yolo, you are an absolute saint. I dot know how you are keeping going.
Mrs8- stick to your guns, “this doesn’t work for me”. She can make her own way. Protect yourself.

am home for food, clean clothes, wine, my (grown up) babies etc but will go back round there as soon as I have eaten so DB doesnt kill her. she is not ill enough yet for ambo - tho pretty sure toxic delirium brewing. she has kind of agreed to go into a care home for 'respite' but they must 'love her' have delicious food and provide 24/7 person to sit in in some kind of vigil. Prob what happens if you are a billionaire?? Seems very unlikely but DB and I have agreed to see what tomorrow brings. Thank you all, as always, for support - the kindness of strangers makes a huge difference and I thank you all from the bottom of my heart. (sorry for lack of capital letters, really cba!!)

In the spirit of complete openness... I had a wicked thought yesterday. We were discuss the upcoming funeral arrangements for a friend, and I explained direct cremation . The wicked thought went through my mind that if DM doesn't shape up... black humour there.

Good luck yolo. Make sure you and your brother get breaks as it won't do your DM any good if you get worn out. It isn't sustainable to have this kind of pressure long term.

I doubt even a billionaire would find anyone willing to put up with this level of demanding behaviour!

She told this morning's enablement lady that my brother threw a pile of books at her in a fit of pique.

GP visiting sometime after 12; I am currently researching care homes for urgent respite care which is taking time...

DB says DSIL will come and they will live in for a couple of weeks, but I dont think that is a good idea because nothing will really change.

What we actually need is another crisis so she is taken back into hospital and then social services put her into a care home. Of course she wants a private 'naice' one but she only has enough money for a couple of months and I dont know what happens after that. Lets face it, wherever she goes she will hate it and demand to come home. I'm not prepared to facilitate getting her out for a 3rd time, because it is a disaster all round.

I feel like shit this morning which has only underlined that the situation doesnt work. Hopefully its just a cold/tiredness etc - the beds in her house are so fucking uncomfortable. I went out and bought new pillows yesterday, and if this goes on will be ordering a new mattress!! My own bed seems like a distant memory...

Mrs8 I would avoid the evil auntie for ever and just go and do your own thing without both of them.

pickle what is direct cremation? (asking for a friend, you understand)

Yolo, sending and and . As you say, this is unsustainable- dB is v kind but there has to be another answer. Good luck with gp- can s/he give her some happy pills???? Anti Mardy old- batness???

With direct cremation, the deceased person is collected and taken straight there to be cremated without ceremony. The ashes then are collected and whatever type of funeral or memorial can be arranged to suit.

I believe several celebrities have gone that route. It allows a lot of flexibility where arrangements are complicated. My wicked thought concerned not waiting until DM passed to book her in. Obviously just a joke, expression of stress, daydream...

Direct crem sounds the way to go actually least stress all round. Tho it would not please DM, the woman who said "but what would all our Naval friends say if I had a Co-op funeral?" then discovered that the co-op advertise in the Royal Naval Officers' magazine so must be quite pukka after all.

Progress today: gp visited, and because he didnt disagree that she should go into a care home she now thinks its all her idea and cant quite understand why she hasnt done it before (erm, you have mum, twice). And also that he must tell her children that we should never have allowed her to leave the last care home, oh and by the way could he drop the prescription he'd just written for anti-anxiety into the chemists on his way back to the surgery? honestly you couldnt make it up!

Very local care home lady coming tomorrow, if she 'passes' assessment they will admit her on Thursday. DB staying til then, I'm staying around tonight/tomorrow again.