The new shiny 2019 thread for anyone caring for elderly parents

[thesandwich]

Continuing the long running series of threads. 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!
And a few laughs and the odd cockroach or gin....

Gummy got drunk and called her a miser who did fuck all for her parents. sorry thigh had to laugh and Gummy is right!

mrscat honestly, in your mum's situation - esp as very early stage - I would not go ahead with surgery. Anaesthesia seems to really fuck with old people's minds, and there is a question to ask as to whether the dementia or the bowel cancer is the most disruptive element to her enjoying life as much as she can. One or the other is going to get her (sorry to be so blunt) and maybe its a choice you can make after talking to the cancer care nurses.

No news on DH next MRI scan yet, but I had to pick up some scrips for him today and had the privilege of using the 'free scrip card for people with cancer'. Saved me over £17, but would have preferred to pay and not be in this situation. A viewing on mum's house on Sat (this is described as an 'open day' I dont think one person qualifies as an open day but there you go...)

cockroach one and all

Agree Dint, there is no logic in that at all, their decisions in such a short time frame.

my concern about not being there at all is that they would be even more likely to decide he can manage for himself? It was you who discovered he'd signed the paper without understanding it, am I right?

total side note
just saw about DofE accident and cannot believe he is driving at that age.

So mum is finally home - arrived this evening - first round won! We are already , however, we'll and truly into round 2. What the hell do I do when mum is constantly pulling off her oxygen mask? She's sleeping fitfully after a panic attack/struggling to breathe episode earlier. Had to give lorazepam and morphine tablet as prescribed but she now can't remember why she has a mask on and keeps trying to take it off. Guess I'm on night watch tonight.

We have a memory clinic assessment for my mum tomorrow. Are there any questions I should ask?

Oneday have you got help in?

I have Power of Attorney questions, I could pop to legal but probably more traffic here. Short version - mum wants to sort out Power of Attorney after probate etc is done for dad - she's adamant she doesn't want to do it before.

there are a couple of issues within her own finances that need to be sorted out. She wants to sort them out, but because dad set stuff up in her name and she just signed it, I'm concerned that if she contacts those places and tells them dad's dead and she didn't know what she was signing, there will be stress. Every piece of paper she gets gives her stress.

so my thinking is, when I have PofA, to sort it out then and then they won't write to her or ask her anything, I can just deal with it. Is that correct or am I overestimating what I could do with PofA?

thanks.

grace dn coming tomorrow. Ended up calling 111 to check if I could swap the mask for nasal tubes - had to adjust dosage but she seems better now, more settled. The 24 dn number we were given was only office hours!

@Grace212 how many attorneys are you having?
You would need to be an attorney for LPA
Your mother is the donor.
It is good to have more than one attorney.

If you cross the box that says joint and severally it will mean you have more options for decisions even if you are not immediately taking over all decisions.

It is good to get health and welfare and property and financial.

It takes two months to come back registered from the opg.

Does this help?

I need to get my mum to do them.
At work we help clients with LPA's.

It was you who discovered he'd signed the paper without understanding it, am I right? Yes. I asked him in front of her what he thought he was signing. How does anyone cope who doesn't have family to fight their corner for them? For anyone dealing with elderlies - this is one reason why you must not over commit yourself - you need to keep the energy and alertness to keep an eye on things like this.

PoA Rose is right. There's a key difference in that Health and Welfare PoA only comes into effect once person has lost capacity, whereas you can set up Financial PoA to come into effect while person still has capacity. That means you can divide up things with your mother, you use PoA to look after some accounts, and she can look after others herself. So you get the PoA registered with the Office of the Public Guardian, and then just show it to the institution managing the account that you are looking after.

Your understanding is right, once you have PoA and the financial institution have accepted it, you can get them to deal only with you, and to send all correspondence to you, just as if the account were in your name. Mistakes can happen. My father and I have just had a compensation payment from a building society that started sending letters to his address and not mine - the whole point of me looking after the account in question was to save him stressing over letters from them.

Oneday do you mean district nurse? wondering about round the clock care, or are you and your family doing that?

Rose & Dint thanks, yes, it's the financial one we were wondering about. tbh the "mistakes" thing is one of my concerns. The idea would be to take things off mum's plate altogether but given the performance of financial places so far, with death certificate etc, I'm not impressed. She would want to carry on being able to run her main current account, but there's a couple of things that she let dad set up for her and they are going to be hard to sort out (long story).

so if LPA lets me sort those out, that would be really good. It's a shame she's so determined to wait for probate - that will take ages, then the LPA will take ages and I have told her this, but of course her grief and stress level combined means she is finding it hard to process all this.

PS Dint I don't know how people manage if they don't have someone to speak for them. doesn't have to be family of course - my dad was doing this sort of thing for 3 older friends but we did have some issues when one of them, who was in her 90s, was in the hospital and it took a while for the hospital to believe that he was her representative.

I'm really glad he never took on POA for her - one of her other friends did - similar to dad's age but in much better health. It would have been chaos trying to find another POA for her on top of everything else!

@Grace212 I understand you want things sorted for her. But maybe she needs a little time to grieve before she moves on with her life. I know they are important documents to have and take a while to do. She has to agree to them with her own free will.
How far are things with the probate?

I just need a quiet howl among friends. Nothing spectacular, I just feel like total shit at the moment, everything is going tits up around me, my mum is dead (and I am pleased that she is, that her suffering is over) but for fucks sake, someting in life needs to go right for a bit, pretty please? Just a break, just some nice things, just freedom from worry?

Rose sorry I wasn't clear

I'm not trying to rush LPA.

What I'm asking is that she avoid dealing with this particular financial thing and just wait till I have LPA. It doesn't need to be dealt with now, or indeed for ages and ages.

she didn't even know how to pay a bill before this and just everyday banking sends her into a panic. So I'm thinking she could be saved the stress of this particular thing, that's all.

she actually wanted to sort out LPA while dad was ill, because we didn't know how long he'd live and she wanted me to be able to do all her work for her then as she was doing hospital/hospice all day...

but then he died, and she decided to delay LPA as she's convinced - bless her - that all the financial stuff "should" be her responsibility. I am impressed with her, but if she is going to have anxiety attacks over stuff like this, then I think she's making too big a sacrifice. I think she feels embarrassed/inadequate after years of letting dad do everything.

probate - unfortunately the paperwork is pure chaos, so if we have it sorted by end of summer I'll be pleased.

yolo sorry I waffled on for so long I didn't see your post

big hugs to you

yolo I am so sorry. Howl all you need to. Life has been really really crap for you and it’s still going on. You have been so strong. 🌺🌺🍷🍷🍷.

Looks like a lot of us are deep in the trenches atm.

I kept my head down with DM this week - busy at work, ongoing issues with Gummy's apprentice, and a virus that I can't shake. Went to see her last night and my diagnosis was right on the cellulitis in her legs, looks like the OOH Doc came out, and 'someone'? picked up her ABs for her from the chemist. Result. DB (golden boy) seems to be worried that I am holding him to splitting the care more evenly. He was supposed to take her for a (not crucial) hospital check up this week and told me the day before he couldn't, so I cancelled the appointment rather than try and take a day's leave to cover it myself.

The quid pro quo in all this though, is that my mum declared she hated the bird feeder that I wrestled with to put up in the garden last Sunday, and wants to give it away (my whole life she has liked to try and punish me like that). As I had my trusty cloak of teflon on, I said I was happy for her to do what she wanted with it.

Unlike those of you who love your elders, and talk about them being your best friends, my parents only ever criticised me, as both a child and adult. So the things I do for my DM now I do out of obligation, and with gritted teeth, which she is well aware of and it pains her even more that she should be in a position where she is reliant on my goodwill. Her favourite topic of conversation is to bitch about someone - her one remaining friend, my DB, his wife, my DH, me. And her second favourite is to complain about being lonely. With no connection between the two.

Last note of my rant - I've been getting counselling for the past couple of months, as I have been struggling with depression and self hate for years. I think I am starting to learn how to cope with her attitude towards me now, and how my parents brought me up, and check my own behaviour so that I don't have to be like them.

Sorry to bore you all with my self analysis rather than offer anyone else any support.

Cockroach all x

notaflyingmonkey

It's good to hear your update, I was wondering how you were feeling after your post on, I think it was New Year's Eve?

I'm glad the counselling is helping, that's really good news.

notaflyingmonkey
My Mil sounds like your mother. In the past few years she has fallen out with many of her friends and like your Mum complains of seeing no one and being lonely. I have researched clubs for her to attend. Spoke with people who run it, who have said they can arrange transport for her, yet she will refuse to try.
Just recently she lost another friend whilst on a turkey and tinsel type coach trip by throwing a glass of wine over them and calling them a hitch for not wanting to play bingo !

Bitch not hitch !

Victoria are you caring for your MIL?

No thankfully.
I posted on here due to comment of a previous post and have been posting on and off as cared for my mother.

@Notaflying, I have a parent who tried to crush me as a child and as an adult
no way would I lift a finger to help them in their old age, if I did get involved I've no doubt they would try to achieve their ambition of killing me off before they died

tbh the "mistakes" thing is one of my concerns. To be fair, that's the only mistake I've had, over about 8 years and 5-6 institutions. I kicked up a stink so it didn't happen again - I think there's nothing quite like paying compensation to persuade an institution not to make a habit of something.

yolo When I feel like this, I take myself outside and look at the small signs of a good things to come - cyclamen in flower all across the terrace, snowdrops and catkins beginning to open - and tell myself that maybe the change in season will bring a change in fortunes. Make sure I have reminders of anything nice that has happened, tell people about it - make room in my mind for the nice stuff as well as the crap.

money for you too. Depression and self hate is one thing I'm really good at. No apologies necessary - you've no idea how helpful I find it to come on here and realise that, no matter how difficult I find my DF, other people have life even worse.

monkey - sorry to mis-spell you. One of the side effects of increasing age is I can no longer type accurately.