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.

DH had a shit night, a drain fell out, pain, no sleep. He asked me to put his parents and sister off from coming - but they are insistent. Have told them to at least make it later in the day and not 10.30am, but SIL has to get back so god knows what time they'll pitch up. He will not be happy, so good luck to them. FIL is 89, MIL 82, SIL 56. You'd think they'd know him well enough by now to know that if he says something he means it...

So sorry for your dh and you yolo 🌺🌺🌺

Oh dear, that sounds grim
I hope his family aren’t a pain. Certainly from previous posts, they sound like they can be.

notaflyingmonkey It's a black mulberry, so wonderful fruit. I planted it about 28 years ago. I notice that now they've developed a dwarf one that you can grow in a container - I was wondering whether to get one as insurance, perhaps give it its freedom and get it a little larger than container sized. Or I could just try to strike a cutting from the one I've got.

yolo Best wishes to your DH. Hate hospitals and operations - so little autonomy at a time when you're at your most vulnerable. It's difficult to remember you're in the best place and being looked after!

mini rant alert: surgeons are happy with DH progress, yesterday's urinary incontinence improving, but he has mild infection at stoma site so on IV antibs. suggestion he could come home Friday/weekend - which I think very unlikely, given his pain levels, general wellness and infection, plus I dont want him to come home unless district nurses are involved for wound dressing/clexane injections. MIL says oh it would be so much better if he was home, we will pay for a nurse - no, it would be so much better if he was NOT discharged until a) he is fit enough for it to happen b) pain is under control c) all arrangements are in place - been there, done that with DM and a Friday/weekend discharge is a bloody disaster waiting to happen. Plus, he doesnt need a nurse, he needs to be fit for discharge, and I dont want a bloody nurse in the house!! aargh. He was nice to them when they visited yest, but shitty to me and DDs, fair enough, that's what I would expect (because he can just be himself with us) but ffs....

Yolo, rant away.

The being shitty to those you trust is very familiar to many of us looking after oldies. No fun though, and not easy to take as a complement.

Do stand your ground. That was a huge operation. Recovery is almost bound to be uneven. If you feel he is safer in hospital, it would seem mad to rush him home.

Many cockroaches

Also sending cockroaches to you Yolo.

yolo I agree he needs to be fit for discharge

but I'm wondering why a nurse in the house would be a bad thing, I thought it would reduce the strain a bit?

yolo if you need to, point out that you are "away at the weekend" so there will be "no-one in the house if he is discharged." (you may need to get someone else to do the weekend visiting in order to keep up the fiction). Or suggest he goes back to Mum and see whether she still feels he can come home at the weekend ;-)

You've done it all before, you know what the problems can be, and how to state your case to the hospital discharge team (whose focus is on emptying beds not on patient aftercare). You're in a good position to fight your corner compared with someone who's doing it all for the first time. You can do this!

yolo rant away! You are right- being in hosp over the weekend sounds much safer for all. Go girl. Take no s#£&.
So sorry dh was shitty with you... as you say, nearest and dearest.
It must have been an effort for him with ils.
And take some time for you now the op is over.
cockroach all.

I'm not often here these days because I too feel burnt out, but I wanted to say I'm thinking of you all and specially yolofish and her DH. Cockroach, tout le monde!

monica and etc for the burn out - can you get some time out/more help?

DH much better today, and they were talking about discharge tomorrow but seems more like Thurs now (mostly because his glasses are broken and keep falling off while changing his bag!! ).

I'm ok with Thursday, enough time before the w/e to kick ass if rqd.

yolo that sounds better news.
monica lovely to see you! Do listen to yolo get extra help in, and look after yourself.
🌺🌺🍷🍷

Thank you, you're both very kind.

I'm glad that things are looking a bit more promising for yolofish's DH's discharge from hospital.

Hello everyone I am new here...
Mum is 80 and showing signs of severe short term memory loss and confusion. She has a dementia assessment next friday. I am an only child- there is no-one to go with her so I have had to cancel my holiday booked to leave next friday to go with her.

Every day brings a crisis. Today she tried to give her husband his meds and gave him double... (he has epilepsy and multiple other problems, just out of hospital and the NHS carers noticed that tomorrows meds were gone from the dosset box- luckily he had not taken them). She is not supposed to give him any meds but she forgets and tries to take over- she has been looking after him for 20 years. (He is not my father and we have never got on). She is struggling to shop properly and his carers are worried that she is getting worse by the day.

I live an hour away on my own and I have to work to keep my home going. She cannot live with me, I have loads of stairs (think tall town house) and frankly I don't like her- she was horrid to me as a child. But I know I have to rise above my dislike and step up- but it cannot include her living with me.
I need to sort out carers etc jointly with his sons but I feel like they want to push the burden onto me because I am a woman and my mum has done all the caring until now. So I am fighting them dumping me with all the "running of the home" stuff because that is what mum did until recently. What a bloody mess.

Hello, Nora, and welcome.

You mention his carers, but is there any help or support being provided for your mother? It sounds like she has care needs of her own, while also acting as a carer. Our local branch of Age UK were really helpful in identifying potential sources of help for my mother (although at that stage she didn't want to accept it) and more recently the health visitor for the elderly has also been helpful. One of the pithy sayings on this thread is that you can't pour from an empty jug, so it's important to preserve your own wellbeing by not taking on roles that others could perform (and even more so if your mother is a difficult woman or not easy to be around).

Glad you found us nora great advice from monica.
Your role should be to facilitate and get resources in place, not take on stuff. Rant away here- loads of experience.
yolohows things?
Hope everyone else is doing as well as possible.

Thanks for the warm welcome. I really appreciate it.

Hi Nora
Hi to everyone in fact

There are health visitors for the elderly? I will look into this.

Mum is having a bad time with low blood pressure- not the first time but doctors never seem to care about it. It’s a shame because she feels totally wiped out when it happens. It normally goes in a few days.

Yes, we only learnt of the health visitor for the elderly’s existence quite recently (and of course I don’t know whether other areas have the same set-up). She’s been great at putting my mother in touch with other services, arranging delivery of equipment and so on. Wish we’d encountered her years ago!

health visitors for the elderly What we have in our area is a district nurse team, nurses to visit and change dressings and so on, an OT who was very helpful not just in getting equipment but in advice, support etc, and a physio. All that was NHS. Then there was a LA team who were a sort of emergency team to assess needs in the widest sense, again good pragmatic advice (eg - don't spend money on converting bathroom to a walk in shower, he won't use it, and a strip down wash at the sink is perfectly satisfactory) - a good reminder to focus on what he will need and use rather than on the expectations of people a generation or two below him.

nora can you put the dosette box in another ox with a padlock? Combination box, with same number as keysafe if you have one? Then NHS carers can get it but not your mum?

I think the carers will sort out med security. We don't have a key safe yet, that needs to be sorted out, I'm hoping her husband's sons will do that bit. They've done nothing for the last 20 years that my mum has nursed him so they can step up now.

nora good luck with getting the sons to step up, I hope they will but I wouldnt rely on it!

DH came home tonight. Filthy temper, but he is exhausted... hope he will wake up feeling better tomorrow. No idea yet whether they got all the tumour out, but they are already talking about more chemo - hope to god it will be tablets as before, rather than 45 mins drive to hospital, 4-5 hour infusion and then 45 mins home again.

It's a different situation than dealing with an oldie somehow...

cockroach to one and all still coping with oldies. I still cant be sorry that DM died, she had wanted to for a good old time.

yolo glad DH is home, he must be relieved to have some privacy again!

Thanks for your honesty re your DM. I find it helps when people are honest about this sort of thing.