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!

cabbage oooh that makes me mad. Your poor Dad, Not tolerant of his dementia at all, so mean. Their lives are so small as it is.

Yolo and Grace sorry you feel so alone. I'll be your MN bud if that helps

In other news Dad's uti is going but Mum is shattered. I popped over for a few hours so she could have a relax in the bath and go to bed upstairs with a pile of magazines for a few hours. I washed Dad top to toe, changed into all clean clothes and got him his toothbrush and electric razor. All the while singing to him and chatting away. Mum came back down after a rest and Dad said - has my hair been combed? I said - no one's has Dad, look at us. Mum and I then had utter hysterics and just couldn't stop and Dad joined in when we called him Rapunzel.

Hello,

I’ve never posted here before but I need to offload and this seems like the best place to do it!

My mum is 70 and is having a knee replacement this week. She and I don’t have the best of relationships - she suffers with very severe depression and was hospitalised with mental illness when I was little (she was actually diagnosed with schizophrenia although she is adamant this diagnosis is incorrect as she has managed with just taking antidepressants for the last 30 years). We used to live together until I was 29 and she essentially controlled my life in many ways - silly things like turning the WiFi off on me whilst I was trying to do things etc. When my first husband and I got divorced (my dh had lived with us) she said I was “decimating” her life and had a breakdown and basically spent the year on the sofa crying. I then met my now dh and we remortgaged (in what was a mortgage free house) to buy her out and she now lives 10 mins away from us in her own home.

She hated my dh from the start and was very hostile to him - once telling him he had “taken her best friend away from her” (me) and she would also drink very heavily and come into our room - at home when we all lived together- shouting at us and calling him a bastard. She denies all of this and says she never did this.

Anyway. That was 8 years ago. We have two dc - one is a teenager from my first marriage and we have a dc with special needs together. My mum sees the children for one hour at week at her house with me. I do not let her see them unsupervised.

I am stuck in this really awful position where I am an only child, my mum has no one else. No friends, no relatives, no one. I feel like underneath it all i care for her because she’s my mum but I am still so angry with her about everything and I feel torn between trying to care for her and basically feeling resentful towards her.

She has a lot of health problems. Chronic copd, chronic stomach issues, severe anaemia etc. This knee surgery isn’t going to be straightforward and I am the one doing everything in terms of taking her for appointments, general taxi services, caring for her two elderly dogs at my house whilst she’s in hospital etc.

I have chronic health conditions myself and am actually waiting to hear whether I am entitled to pip (I have very severe autoimmune conditions and I am literally struggling to manage day to day, I have chronic kidney issues too). My son has autism and learning disabilities and attends complex needs school.
My husband has depression and is on medication, although currently working full time and trying to keep managing all this stress with my mum is getting to him as he can’t stand her.

The main issue I’m having is that having had a lot of previous medical intervention / surgeries my mum absolutely HATES medical people and is absolutely appalling when she speaks to them - she gets incredibly aggressive and angry when they challenge her / ask her questions about her conditions. She was told there might be a delay with her knee surgery the other day as she had been taking antibiotics- a valid reason- and she ended up banging her walking stick on the floor aggressively and shouting at everyone and saying she wanted to die - she’s been saying that her whole life, so I’m used to it but it’s still difficult to be around.

I’m just needing some support really and somewhere safe to vent. My dh gets fed up with my talking about mum and basically just thinks I should cut her off completely but due to her mental issues etc I feel I can’t do that and even the medical people seem to be looking to me to support her.

I’m struggling.

I agree, sending hugs to all who need it right now. Don't want to only post when it's me who needs the help but just honestly can't always come up with much wisdom to be of use. I can just say that I understand and knowing others care and are interested in you really helps x

whatever said it right, it's just hugely helpful to know that other people understand. fairy have you thought about going to your gp to discuss the problems with your mum? it doesnt sound as if you can keep on doing what you are doing, either mentally or physically, and hopefully gp can get something moving?

Hi, I think you are all wonderful, and I am so sorry for what you are going through. My family and I have, for the past almost 5 years, been looking after my gran who had dementia. I have seen the strain it puts on everyone, the difficulties that arise in trying to find help, etc, and I know how difficult it can be.

I hope you don’t mind me temporarily jumping in on your thread, but I’m here looking for a little help and insight. I’m going through the process of setting up a care business. When we looked for provision for my gran, there was hardly anything in my local area, and even less that was satisfactory. I feel passionately that we can do better, and I genuinely want to help people on similar situations.

I’ve started my own thread (I didn’t want to hijack anybody else’s) : www.mumsnet.com/Talk/elderly_parents/3428331-Care-of-elderly-relatives

And if anybody who has experience of this could pop on there and offer words of wisdom, I would be forever grateful. I really want to provide a service that truly helps people, so am trying to get as much input as I can.

Sending love to all of you, and I’ll be following this thread now too, because if I can offer any advice / support / words of encouragement ( as someone who has both worked in social / medical care, and been through the process of caring for a relative with very serious dementia) in return I would love to do so!

My adult son git mugged last night and had his teeth broken. He turned up very drunk here and needed the taxi paid. As soon as I ascertained he didn't have other injuries my first thought was "fuck it, more shit for me to sort out" he got stolen from him his phone, my debit card and his brother's very expensive laptop. Why wasn't it his phone, his debit card and his cheap shit laptop i hear you ask? A good question. Doubtless i will have to pay his dentistry, I'll get whatever i can on the NHS but i can't see it all being free. He doesn't want me to report it to the police so i would think there's more to it. He's been in his own flat 2 years but is like a fucking boomerang and here all the time. I texted my sister today and asked if she would do 2 days twice a month with Dad and she said let's play it by ear. Which means no. I feel like a beast of burden honestly. And i feel like a bastard that my son turns up drunk and bleeding and i just think about everything I will be forced to sort out. He's 28 and has severe ADHD and it seems MH and substance abuse issues. Great.

pouring a large one for you @thighofrelief

Oh thigh I am so sorry. As you say more crap to deal with.
fairy your situation sounds awful. Friends have fiund the carers association helpful- you cannot carry on as you are.
no - read through this and previous threads and you will soon see what people are dealing with.
yolo a hand to hold if you need one.
cockroach🍷 all.

Thank you sandwich... I have read some threads, and I understand what people are up against- I’ve very recently been through it with my gran (she just died last week). I have done a lot of research, and spent time working in care, but I’d also like to hear of any particular insights that people might have about particular things that might have made their / their loved ones’ lives easier. I so want to provide solutions to the problems that people are dealing with on a daily basis.

Also, we went through the process of applying for continuing care for my gran. It’s really difficult, but thought that if anyone has any questions about that I’d be more than happy to advise!

thigh the hugest hug ever xxxx
nocreative I will look at you thread tomorrow.

Still no bloody death certificate! Coroner was supposed to be looking at it today - am getting seriously worried whether we can have funeral on 27th as planned. DH oncology appt cancelled as they want more tests - 6.5 weeks since this started and he has had NO treatment. I mean, that's probably better than the wrong treatment, but it's very frustrating. Total limbo all round.

Oh thigh! That sounds just horrendous Hand holds/hugs//

yolo - same to you. What an incredibly stressful time you’re having.

fairy you poor love. I can sympathise as I am stuck with my dad and we didn’t have a good relationship before he got ill (although not as traumatic as yours and your mum’s sounds). After about a year, I went to social services and asked for an assessment for him during which I said really clearly that I was neither willing nor able to provide the level of care I had been doing and certainly not the increasing care he’d inevitably need. That’s how we’ve ended up with a PA for him. It’s never going to take away all my responsibilities (and I just couldn’t ever cut him off completely) but it feels like a bit of extra support and it felt good to tell “the authorities” I wasn’t going to take it all on my own shoulders. They had to accept it - no one can force you to be a carer.

In my own news, I’ve had a very muddly day with dad and I suddenly realised I’ve made a really terrible fuck-up at work. Like makes-you-want-to-puke terrible. I’m so tired, it was just a mistake but it’s a bad one where someone could have been hurt. So humungous gin and a big cry for me.

cabbage and yolo enormous hugs, 🍫🍫🍷🍷🌺🌺 to you both.

cabbage so upset for you and your dad - horrible to know you have made a real mistake like that and so sad that people are incapable of being kind to your dad
yolo not sure how you are still standing (maybe you aren’t) I really hope the death certificate is sorted soon but more importantly I hope that you get some progress for DH - a new horrible limbo for you
thigh I know what you mean about another mess to sort on top of everything else. I hope DS recovers quickly from the physical injuries and can help sort it all out (umm I guess that is unlikely)
fairy vent here to save your marriage - we all get it!
grace support to you too
Usual here - missed appointments, misunderstandings, missing belongings - confusion all round for me to unpick!

What are you doing about Christmas? No details too small let's hear about portion sizes, Tupperware and journeys. I'll give you my run down after dealing with the toothless one and the dentist. Bah! Had just paid off my credit card.

@thighofrelief

hope the dentist and the bill are okay. Sounds painful all round.

Re Xmas, haven't dared say the word after dad died. We didn't really do family xmas but mum was always with dad so it will be horrible for her.

I'm having that funny thing where I'm really anxious leaving her alone. I am still pondering living with her but haven't actually said it to her.

on a totally separate note, and a selfish one, I am back in my flat and finding it noisy and depressing after being in her quiet home. This a mere 2 weeks after saying I was anxious about being out of my home!

funny how things turn out.

oh perhaps my anxiety is what yolo was saying about feeling alone. I don't know.

Grace - will post more later. But i think Christmas could be referred to as the c word

I always call it the c word as I hate the family pressure.

so ironically, this year might be easier in some ways for me, but harder for mum, which makes me feel very guilty.

sorry, this is probably not on topic, but I am experiencing a lot of guilt at the moment because I really believe that mum will be lost forever without her husband whereas I know I'll be okay without my dad. Confusing feelings.

Sympathy to everyone who is trying to cope with things. When you've got that much on your plate it's hard to think anything other than "oh, no, that's yet another problem for me to sort".

What am I doing about Christmas? At the moment, trying to work out how to get DF into the house. We moved family get togethers from DS's house to ours to avoid the flight of badly maintained Council steps up to his house, to discover DF is having problems stepping over the threshold into our back porch, so made a "bridge" to give him something wider to stand on, only to find that he's now having difficulty with the flight of 4 steps down to the path. So making some "half steps" to help with that. But how much worse will he be by Christmas Day?

Grace I believed that about my Dad, I was dreading either of them dying, my mum because she was disabled and I wasn't prepared to give up my career to be her full time nurse, my dad because my mother was his whole world. He was totally lost when she went, asking me what he should do (I sent him round to a friend). But it's 30 years later and he's carved two new lives out for himself in that time.

it's all a turmoil of emotions isnt it... when my dad died it was awful (dropped dead on the golf course, I was 34 weeks pregnant, had to fly abroad the next day to get to the funeral blah blah) and I then had a (difficult) baby, so I didnt really get too much time to worry about mum, and she was only 66 and very fit and could learn to cope. Now that mum has died I cant think about her because I have DH and the DDs to think about. Honestly though my main emotion is one of relief, and that's complicated too - relieved for HER but also hugely hugely relieved for me. DB seems to be taking it all very hard and is full of doom and gloom, while I'm practically skipping into the sunset grateful that that chapter of life is over!

meanwhile we still have no death cert (actually form 6 for the crem) and funeral supposed to be a week today. People keep phoning and asking and I keep having to say I dont know, I will let them know asap and then get asked but 'what do you THINK?' I dont fucking know!!

oh yes the c word... we (the 4 of us) have decided we are staying home and doing exactly what we want. ILs Christmas is always so completely overblown that I feel sick before we even sit down for lunch so we have the excuse that DH will be having chemo by then, wont be able to eat blah blah. That feels like another get out of jail free card!

I worry about my Dad's ability to access my house in the future too. We have some steps down to the front door and then the threshold of the door itself for him to navigate up again.

I find myself day dreaming about bridges or slide chutes to send him over the steps and straight into the hall. It would need to be steep enough to propel him but shallow enough not to become an octogenarian death slide.

Yolo, sorry you have all this to deal with.

It is such a range of emotions isn't it. My dad was so ill, it was right for him to go, but then I look at mum and feel terrible. She's 80 with heart problems and was never one for doing anything but hanging out with him.

But I too feel relief, the period of "another day of dad suffering in hospital" was appalling. But mum held on to hope in that time.

I know I should be taking this one day at a time but I'm rubbish at that.

Speaking of mobility issues, I really want to get a stair lift fitted in the house but my mum is the sort who would rather wait till the crisis actually occurs...!

Outside steps - are portable ramps an option?