Caring for elderly parents? Pop in for support and a rant

[thesandwich]

Pace yourself, it's a marathon not a sprint!

This is a safe place to offload- don't be embarrassed about how you feel. No judgement here...

There are lovely people here with practical experience of some of the issues which crop up who'll share their hard won knowledge!

Some Drs are shit need it's so dangerous when people in authority make these "pronouncements" without having the full picture.

I've been thinking a lot about how us middle aged oldie wranglers can top up our own souls/psyches without too much effort.

The massage helped, later I'm going to have a serious bath with posh unguents. Possibly candles too.

Perhaps a facial, reflexology? For me dog walking and dog snuggling saves my bacon. The key being no deep discussions.

The silent gigolo I've decided will also have to move my limbs. I'm not joining in!

need sorry to hear that and the hassle! Hope your DM feels better today.

thigh I'm jealous you can get your folks to use Alexa, I can't get mum to use a computer.

all this gigolo talk has given me a Neneh Cherry earworm...

I'm running on empty, but have realised that slipping into a depression would only cause my family situation to get worse (Gummy's apprentice in particular needs me to rally). So having got the relatively straightward visit to my mum out of the way early, I am now cooking a roast (effort usually reserved for high days and holidays) and in return we are going out to see Bohemian Rhapsody later (DD is home from uni for the weekend). I am so far behind on my work it is inexcusable, but need to regroup a little first. Hopefully gin will be involved soon.
Cockroach all x

I think it's like on planes when they say put your own oxygen mask on first. We have to look after ourselves to be able to look after others. I look back to when both my parents were alive and it was like the titanic. One sister was sat in the lifeboat with her lifejacket on. One had swum for shore and drowned but that's another story and that left me with 2 elderly parents trying to put jackets on them whilst one wandered off to watch the orchestra

Brilliantly put, way- can’t call you wrong..... love the image of the titanic.....
Running on empty is no good for anyone - and it is a marathon- trying to keep something in the tank, however maintained......massages, walks, dogs and silent gigolos sound like a good recipe.
cockroach all....

Grace - just saw your PM so have replied. x

Cockroach everyone.

Rant also needed here. I am having a Very Bad Day. Last night I had an angry and extremely spiteful message from an old friend who feels I have been unfair to her. She struggles with mental illness and addiction and I’ve always tried to be there for her (although that has been entirely a one way street for probably the best part of 10 years now) but I think she’s crossed a line we can’t come back from. She signed off her message “You’re not the person you congratulate yourself on being” as if I’m sat here patting myself on the back for being amazing. And as if she could possibly know what sort of person I am, or think I am, having taken zero interest in my life for all these years. But it was designed to hurt and it really, really has - keep randomly bursting into tears, including in M&S earlier.

Oh and dad called me this morning to go round because he has - wait for it - lost a couple of CDs. Although he couldn’t remember the word for “cd” nor “lost” so kept saying “some things had fallen out” which was not helpful. He said the same thing when he had a vomiting bug last winter so I panicked first, then eventually figured it out and told him I wasn’t coming over just to look for CDs. And then I felt terrible because he wanted the CDs and I cried. I am an unutterable mess. And I have to take him for a flu jab tmw which will be awful.

Sorry, I am feeling very sorry for myself this eve.

Wrong wonderful metaphor re the Titanic. "Yes the orchestra is lovely but let's just pop these nice life jackets on. No, I know it's not a potato, i said life jacket".

I'd just like to share with you all that i brought Dad over to my house yesterday to see AngelChild. We don't have a downstairs loo so Dad peed in the china milk jug. Just popping it in the dishwasher.

Must remember to use the tea service should we ever see SS.

Oh Cabbage. It sounds like she has few people to contact, and has lashed out at the person who she knows will actually read the message. I'm the subject of what feels like completely unreasonable hatred at the moment from my brother inlaw and it's absolutely awful, I have been a mess for a week just because my father in law decided it was time we made up and put us in the same room unexpectedly. It hasn't worked [duh] and I have not coped, I barely got through work or looked after ds this week and it shows how near the edge so many of us are and how little that shows as a rule. I'm really worried about this flu jab trip for you tomorrow - would it be sensible to just let yourself cry while you are there? Let a health professional see just how tough it is at the moment?

Oh cabbage I am so sorry. Not what you needed. Huge hug from me.
Corny but sometimes people show their true colours. Her stuff, not yours. Sorry about your dad too. What can you do to recharge- even a nice coffee out somewhere? Silent gigolo? 🌺🌺🍷
Oh thigh that had me howling!!! Milk anyone??

Thanks Annandale and sandwich - I think part of what is upsetting me so much is how sad I feel for this friend - she is so lonely but absolutely convinced that everyone in her life will let her down, to the point where it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy - she pokes and pushes and needles until people can't take it anymore. And then it's a scorched earth thing - she makes sure the relationship is good and dead - she's done this with friends, partners, jobs etc but I never thought it would be me

Sadly the only medical professional who will be at the flu jab is the pharmacist - we have to do it privately as dad is under 65 and dementia is not on the list of ongoing conditions that entitle you to a jab on the NHS. How ridiculous eh - considering last time he was sick he told me something had "fallen out" of his mouth, couldn't sense when it was going to happen so just barfed all over himself and then just sat there in it etc etc. Oh and couldn't in a million years manage to take paracetamol every 4 hours etc. He'd need 24 hour nursing if he had flu!!

I will be ok though - it's just been a rough couple of days and I'm tired and on top of everything DH and I have our first meeting for stage 2 of our adoption process (the really intensive interrogation assessment stuff) so I'm nervous and dispirited and it's all got on top of me a bit.

I definitely need to go to Club Silent Gigolo Grace. Wonder if Octogenarian Death Slide might be playing a gig?

We don't have a downstairs loo so Dad peed in the china milk jug. I've just thrown out all of DFs crusty emergency bottles - I'll buy new if and when he comes home. He definitely has less inhibition about personal functions than when he was younger, and a greater tendency to share. I guess I'm "in loco uxorem".

I just want to say how much I have enjoyed the virtual company on here recently. We are all going through so much, and yet I manage to laugh at this thread and the interpretations we give on things.

well said nota 🌺🌺

I’ve just read the whole thread, it’s such a relief to know I’m not alone. However my problems are so minor compared to others on here I do feel embarrassed having a moan. DM is so stubbornly independent, her mobility is poor, she is virtually blind and she will not accept help. She is determined not to go in a home but won’t let me arrange things to make her life easier to enable this. She rarely goes out, and only accompanied, but agreed to have a rollator. Took one look and declared it a wheelchair and won’t have anything to do with it. She asked me not to have anymore ideas because it gets her down.

However, my biggest concern is her false memories. Over the last year if she has been somewhere new; someone’s house, shop, a hotel she has been insistent that she has been there before. She “remembers “ everything about the earlier visit in great detail, who she was with, why she was there etc. The stories are so plausible and she is so convincing she makes us doubt ourselves. Similarly to the earlier poster talking of a plumber from the television shop we have had shoe inserts from a furniture store - the salesman looked totally bemused, but went along with it and said perhaps it was before his time. I’m guessing she’s seeing something new, trying to process information and filling in the gaps from other memories. It just makes it so difficult to know when to believe what she tells me.

Sorry for offloading, it’s good to do it and not feel judged.

Hi Bluebell and welcome. Feel free moan away. It is so hard when they resist interventions that would help. Sometimes it helps if it comes from 'authority' eg a Dr, or a man (if you have a DB?) rather than us.

CabbagePatchCheryl sorry for your troubles. I think Octogenerian Death Slide should be the exclusive house band for Club Silent Gigolo!

welcome Bluebell

sorry for everyone with new stresses. There's a "now what" factor to all this isn't there.

What us MAOW (middle aged oldie wranglers) need is a "care home" for us. Now this care home is a locked ward - we're not locked in, the world is locked out. There is IV gin, little morsels of cake and chocolate placed into our mouths, silent gigolos, piped ODS playing. We would communicate via coded hankies like cruising gays. Black is Silence!, blue is light chatter only and pink for open to gallows humour. Compulsory massages and facials. Off to the memory clinic which is useless and shit.

thigh love it! Book me in! Interesting glimpse into your mind there!!

what it is, is it's like death by a thousand cuts I think? one little thing - fine. 27,000 little things - so absolutely not fine that you end up screaming gibbering and rocking in a corner... And people say 'oh you are so wonderful doing x and y and z' before they bugger off (looking at you here DB and SIL - well, before the criticism started anyway).

I think the more we moan the better - where do I sign up for the care home please? need the respite before PIL start on the same path.

Yolo

Thigh, please tell me the care home is staffed by robots. I am getting way too much human interaction at the mo.

Yes, Grace robots is a good call. And the temperature is correct in this magical place. Tired of melting at 40c in Darkest Peru (M&Ds house).