The second new shiny 2019 thread ...

[MereDintofPandiculation]

... for anyone caring for elderly parents. Come and join us to ask for, or to give, sympathy, ask for advice, or have a good rant.

yolo oh I know, but mum doesn't want to go near the DWP and also thinks we shouldn't be entitled to it. Morals re universal benefits. Fair point.

I am tempted by the discount site as I was planning to replace my ancient ipad but if you need to be on an official list, clearly I'm not. Interestingly it's not on their terms and conditions. Like Amazon constantly offering Prime Student I guess!

Thanks yolo and rosa
Carer has stepped up- dm a bit better. Had frank convos with siblings- awaiting to see the impact........ won’t hold my breath.....
Feel on high alert which is not helpful😞😞

sandwich do you mean frank convos with siblings to see if they will help?

yes, I hate the high alert thing. I went to some meditation classes which helped actually.

Big hugs to all who need them on this thread and patience to all those coping with difficult parents. I was working for 3 days of the long weekend but still managed to fit in a couple of visits to my parents (who needed some DIY doing). Thankfully my DH was around to help.

Yesrosa trying to get them to take some responsibility... I don’t hold my breath.
Good tip re meditation, thank you.
cockroach all.
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sandwich I tried the meditation class in absolute desperation tbh. I never thought sitting in a class with people would help anything, but it was down the road from work so I went and it was good.

I just want to be sure I don't come across as offering mad solutions to incredibly stressful things btw!

Hello All

Infrequent visitor here, but absolutely with you all in spirit.

Cockroaches all round.

Sandwich - huge hugs to you. I hope the siblings step up. It's absolutely not fair it should all fall on you.

Well, I've had a real eye-opener; I thought my flabber could no longer be gasted by Mother, but...

She has a lovely friend (LF) who lives round the corner, aged 90, who has serious mobility issues but otherwise absolutely on the ball.

I've chatted to her a few times over the last year or two, and it's like talking to someone 20 or 30 years younger. Such a wide range of interests and so very kind. Lovely, lovely lady.

Anyway, M has refused to go on their regular lunch dates for the last month or two. So LF got a taxi round the corner to visit M to cheer her up.

She fell on Mum's drive as she arrived, and long story short, has a broken pelvis and a broken arm.

M didn't feel able to go out to her, as she lay in agony, but stayed in the house.

Eventually, LF's son and an ambulance were summoned somehow. Son borrowed some scatter cushions from M to make LF comfy as they waited for the paramedics, and these were taken with her to hospital.

All, ALL, M is now concerned about now is the return of these damn cushions. When she heard I had spoken to LF's son., all she wanted to know was whether I had asked he return them. Of course that was the last thing on my mind!

On the one hand it is gobsmacking; on the other, there is an old chime of familiarity - this is how she has always been within the family - selfish to the last, if masking it a bit in front of strangers.

Dementia is not improving matters either.

rosa, seriously thank you for reminding me what could help. So easy to lose sight in the trenches!! Thank you.
grinchly! Huge hugs. Your M is a piece of work...... speechless!

Rosa there are a few questions on that website but no specific requirements. It lists lots of different offers (not just for carers) and I guess different companies have different criteria.

I looked at the website for a place Dad would like to go for a day out over the weekend. They accept various 'proof' of carer status including DWP letters, blue badges etc which means that as a carer you can get in free. They also do free pre-bookable wheelchair loan.

The website contains lots of details about places that offer carer discounts etc so it's definitely worth a look.

sandwich I totally get the 'high alert' feeling but wouldnt have actually been able to identify it until I read your post. That's basically been me since mid January.

I used the Calm app (actually paid for the subscription) and its really helpful.

It's worth remembering that certain items can be bought VAT-free if required as a result of a medical condition - all that's required is a reason and a signature. It's something I was quite unaware of, but have been able to use it for Dad's shoes, extra wide-fitting to cope with oedema. Every little helps!

Attendance allowance - could you make an argument that morally they wouldn't be using for themselves, they'd be using it to provide employment to others? Targetting the money better than would be done by the Chancellor of the Exchequer?"

Mere I could but frankly I cba. It's her money after all.

Grinchly I am so sorry to hear about Lovely Friend, that's terrible. Was your mum scared to go out on the drive, is that something she doesn't normally do?

Minty thanks. I shouldn't be spending so I will hold off for now!

Mate of mine said to me that, just as many of us are entirely different people over the course of our lives, the parent you have in their 80s could be an entirely different one than the one you are sort of used to.

grinchly your mum poor lovely friend, I hope she gets better soon.

rosa I like dints argument about providing employment - my mum absolutely loved being able to do this (in fact a few years ago I decided I could no longer afford my cleaner - who is lovely but pretty ineffective - and mum insisted on paying her to come to me fortnightly!) She still comes to me, she's still lovely and a good friend now, but her cleaning skills lack something - although better than mine so I would never dream of saying anything!

DB has just phoned to ask if I have any news on mum's house sale - well, no, durr, else I would have phoned him? but reminds me I need to call agent tomorrow.

Hello all! Seeing some familiar names on the discharge from hospital thread reminded me that I hadn’t dropped in here for a while. Like many here, I’m keeping buggering on. , and cockroaches for all, according to your preference and need!

Hello to all of you on the thread😊 hope you don't mind me butting in, under various usernames I have long lurked and sometimes posted.
My parents are in their late 70s, no longer together, starting to have health problems starting to be weird and difficult, I am an only child my relationships with them have always been strained, I see this train coming down the tracks and I don't like the look of it at all

HearHere

I'm an only too...it does bring a different layer of emotions/complications, but the most of the time I don't think having siblings would necessarily be any better.

For the majority of people I know dealing with elderly parents it tends to be one sibling that cops all the flack and having multiple opinions to take into account when things get contentious can be a right ball ache.

In many way I'm glad it's just me having to deal with it.

It's true @Minty, and I seen it so often...one sibling steps up to take some of the burden everyone else takes several large steps backwards🤨

Yeah, agree with Minty - being an only has its compensations.

Went to see Dad yesterday, took a sketch plan of "his bit" of the home, and we went for a little walk, only about 30m there and back but about 5 times as far as he's walked since being in there. He was very haapy at being able to place his room in its immediate surroundings. All good! All set for a day off to get to accumulated admin and tidying up back here ...

... then woken at 8am by Dad on the phone, very put out, claiming his bed was "corrugated iron" and the wash basin was blocked. But none of the ancillary information made the least bit of sense. Feel outraged that my precious day to catch up at home is threatened - not at all a daughterly feeling.

I've rung the home to tell them he's upset, and they've promised to talk to him. I hope my son is going in later, but haven't told him in case he doesn't make it.

It's the permanently being on-call that gets to me. I'm never relaxed.

I agree that the permanent sense of being on call is very draining. I flinch when the landline rings as it’s rarely anything good. (And when my sibling is not taking their share of the load, I do feel a bit like an only child).

Mere "Feel outraged that my precious day to catch up at home is threatened - not at all a daughterly feeling."

I think that's completely natural. I have a friend who told her mother's nursing home to never call her unless it was an emergency.

I have a friend who told her mother's nursing home to never call her unless it was an emergency. Our nursing home is good about that. But Dad can still make calls on his mobile - ie he can hit the green telephone twice to call the person at the top of his call list, which is me. I suppose if desperate I could be evil and move DH or DS to the top of his call list!

Oh I could cry! (The background is DM is in hospital- she’d been at home with carers 4 times a day but it didn’t work out and she ended up with a UTI and a fall. I live 5 hours away). I’m here for the weekend but it’s so hard visiting her - she has dementia and we have the same conversation on repeat, which is always about when she can go home. Interspersed with an occasional reference to her wanting to die. She has no quality of life at all. It’s just so sad. But at the same time my patience only lasts for a while having the same conversation.

The SW had been talking about arranging a live-in carer for her, but I’m not even sure if that’s feasible any more- we’re having a meeting/call next week to discuss next steps.

In some ways we’ve been really lucky reading other people’s experiences- all the SW and hospital staff we’ve dealt with have been lovely.

Sorry- just needed to whinge!

Mere not sure what you mean by green phone but my friend would vet her calls from her mum - if her mum didn't leave a message, she would then usually find someone to talk to in the home.

Too I'm so sorry to hear that. I'm not sure I could visit a parent with dementia tbh. That sounds awful, but I feel I've been through the wringer already.

There was a really helpful poster on another thread - I don't recall her name - told us about how her own mother ruined her health looking after her grandmother. It was good because it made me more realistic about the future.

Mere not sure what you mean by green phone I meant the button on a non-smart phone which has a green phone icon on it and which you use to make a call (with a red phone button to terminate it). If you hit it once without keying in a number, it lists the last 4 numbers that you called. Hitting it again calls the most recent number (or you can scroll down to one of the others, but that's beyond him).

Dad would probably have another go at talking to someone in the home, but he's only been there a month and is still settling in, and very reliant on me sorting things out for him. Without a sense of security, his confusion and paranoid thoughts get far worse.

I think space, and time, make a big difference. Until mum went completely doolally (mid Sep ish 2018?) visiting was difficult, hard work, I did a lot of feeding her, propping her up making her comfortable, constant reassurance, etc.

Once she'd completely lost it, I could actually see very little point visiting as it just seemed to make her more and more distressed. - I know that sounds hard as nails, but honestly, every time she saw me she would scream my name and ask me to take her home, which was absolutely impossible. Then she'd be away with the fairies again...

And dont start me on the bloody green button on the phone!!

I suppose what I am trying to say, probably cackhandedly, is that you can only do what you can do, and that also depends on the mental status of your oldie. Huge difference between physically frail and sharp as a tack, and physically frail and losing it, or just losing it...

I am just starting, 7 mths after DM died, to be able to remember how she was before the hideous last 5 mths of her life, and so start to miss her. Stupid thing: she left me a little folding pembroke table, very nice; DD2 is using it to do a jigsaw puzzle on, and I just think DM would have loved it if she'd known that was happening. Also her cat is now well settled with us (been here since last July, had to get used to existing 2 cats, and new dog who came in Oct), and that would have made her happy too.

cockroach

Read all your updates- too knackered and consumed with dm’s Stuff at the mo to make much sense, but sending solidarity and strength to everyone.
yolo thanks for your perspective- very helpful.
cockroach all.
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