Just wondering if anyone has any experience of how to deal with McMillan when elderly parent has more than one condition. My mum is 82 and practically immobile. My Dad gets stuck/frozen/"goes off" (parkinsons' terminology) on a regular basis, At night it happens regularly as he gets up to pee over and over again and then gets stuck/frozen in teh dark. Panics, gets cross etc etc. She can't get to him to help, can't help him much if she could. In the middle of the night they either wait and hope something changes or call an ambulance if it's bad. We technically are on the McMillan radar and have a nurse rep. My Mum tried McMillan for the first time three weeks ago at 11pm at night. They came and were lovely and said call us any time. Two lovely nurses who took 20 minutes to get him unstuck and back in bed. My mum has tried McMillan in similar situation three more times, got difference nurse, who's said, "no it's parkinsons, or almost a fall, so call the paramedics not us".
Basically I think they're saying "it's not the cancer". 82 Year old Mum now feels more alone and has been told she shouldn't have called in the first place. She's pretty good for 82, does tons of shopping on her ipad etc. I may be wrong but I don't think there's a huge army of 82 year old women who do their supermarket shop online or buy their own incontinence products from Boots' website.
I'm preparing to wade in a bit more. Are we expecting too much of McMillan? We see specialist Parkinson's nurse tomorrow for meds review which we hope will help the freezing, Oncology Consultant next week and McMillan will be next on my list. So looking for advice on how to get Parkinsons and Cancer people to talk and not "blame" the other condition for his problems. If his prostate wasn't so bad he perhaps wouldn't constantly be getting up to pee all the time for eg. How does the opposite specialist know which condition is causing weakness of arm, failure to empty bladder etc etc? Half of his symptoms appear on all the bloody side effects of everything he has as well as half the meds!
Cancer has spread to lymph and/or bones too so he's now on a palliative pathway.
Any and all advice gratefully received.