The Cockroach Cafe Mark 2 (general coping with oldies)

[yolofish]

Morning all! regulars or newbies, coping with your oldies is a frustrating, exhausting and difficult business however much we love them. The Cockroach Cafe is open to all, a place to vent, rant, ask questions, get advice, and hopefully laugh too.

For newbies: why cockroach? My DM attended a 'small animal event' in a nursing home, and was presented with a "small animal with a hard back" the name of which species she couldn't remember. My ever helpful DB suggested cockroach, and it has become a toast on here. So cockroach mes amis/amies, and may you all live to fight another day.

My lovely best friend has just offered me her late Mum’s and is going to bring it down when she visits in a few weeks.

I've just done finance PoA. The certificate provider needs to have known the donor for over two years or someone who has known them for under two years can do it if they know them in a professional capacity. I asked a friend who knows me and mum. You can do it yourself, the website leads you through it step by step and you can save it at any point. It is nowhere near as involved as applying for a blue badge. It prints to 22 pages but that is the full document and for me a lot of those pages were crossed through because they didn't apply.

You don't need a solicitor - your GP didn't want to do it.

I told the GP receptionist she was wrong, I knew it didn’t need to be a solicitor. Plainly they don’t want to know.

www.gov.uk/government/publications/make-a-lasting-power-of-attorney/lp12-make-and-register-your-lasting-power-of-attorney-a-guide-web-version#A10

If you scroll down a bit to section A10 it says who can and can't be a certificate provider. They need to be independant so can't be a relation or an employee. A friend or neighbour, someone from church or a social club could do it.

Like seanbeanmarryme we also did it without a solicitor and using a (not close but trusted) family member as the Certificate Provider. I didn't know about the stamp from Amazon, that sounds really useful.

A quick note on LPOAs:
Don't use a solicitor! Mum got absolutely shafted to the tune of over £1k! 😡
I managed to get her a refund though!
Can I have a bit of a rant???
We are looking for a rental house for mum...my "dear" sister has taken her to view a house in the worst area locally - drug dealers, loud parties, anti social behaviour...wtf????
And was encouraging her to apply!
So now I'm the bad guy for pointing that out...ffs 🤬
I've always known my sister was a self serving bitch but...😔
She is desperate to get mum a place and get her hands on some of the money from the sale of the house.
No idea how to protect mum going forward....do I suggest invoking the financial lpoa?
Arhh

@yoikes
You can't unless it can be proved your mother no long has capacity.

I thought financial poa can be invoked by the donor at any time?

When you make the finance LPA you can elect for it to start at any time or when you have lost capacity so it depends on what was in the lpa as to when it comes into effect.

@BestIsWest

I asked at the GPs today about Certificate Providers and got a flat ‘no, you need a solicitor’. Helpful not.

I have thought of someone but will need to discuss it with mum.

Hi, This happened to me, was put very bluntly and rudely by the receptionist. I asked my dad's social worker to check this out as all websites say a GP can be asked. She asked the care practitioner and then a GP phoned me back to tell me that none of the GPs knew my dad very well so couldn't assess (my dad was in and out of there all the time!), it was a very busy practice, they did not know us or our family very well... what could happen is that a solicitor (ker-ching!) could appoint a medical practitioner to assess mental capacity, in which case they would act.

We have found a family friend who hopefully will agree to be the certificate provider. Wish I'd done this ages ago instead of faffing around now.

The forms are quite easy to fill in by yourself. Unless affairs are very complex, no need for a solicitor.

I feel like I’m in an pensioner version of Supernanny. My Mum is perfecting distraction techniques each time I visit, she needs the commode every time I visit, even if the carers have just left, she doesn’t want to go to bed as it’s always too early (to be fair sometimes it is). She is contradictory in that she wants me to put her to bed but wants me to be at home with my family; she doesn’t want carers but is lovely when they arrive; struggles to walk a couple of steps so stairs are impossible, won’t entertain a stairlift but is desperate for a shower. I’m fortunate that she is just around the corner and I’m currently happy to go round every night but know that this cannot carry on long term. She gets confused more easily now...old age is rubbish.

blue
I hear you! Mum won't even consider aids which would allow her to stay where she is (commode, stairlift etc)
I'm so pissed off with my sister....luckily I only ever see her if she has a problem and wants me to sort it out.

I have decided that I am not going to sit and have a cup of tea with DM when I visit anymore, but instead to use my time at hers productively. So I am starting to get on top of the cleaning and her paperwork (found the letters about paying for her TV licence which was a relief).

The only problem being that she follows me around and stands about a foot away from me quizzing me on what I am doing, and telling me the same story about her carer on repeat. I have to do the non committal grunt that the men in my family perfected (usually when they were reading the paper or watching the horseracing on TV).

It's a delicate balance though, as she is clearly incontinent, but in denial about it. So we both pretend that the sheets don't need changing as often as I change them.

What is it with stairlifts? DM won’t consider one either. Social services put a handrail in but when Dad was in hospital about a month before he died we moved their bed downstairs into the front sitting room.

But she still insist on keeping all her clothes up there and goes upstairs to dress which worries me.

I guess the older we get the less open/willing to try "new" things we are?
Or maybe they can't accept they are ageing/needing more help?
My mum and I aren't close so not a conversation we could have.
I'm utterly exhausted today.
There is another thread open atm that makes for horrifying reading.
I'm going to signpost her here.

I think I’ve just read that thread. Good shout.

This thread is the club that nobody wants to be a member of... and once in you can never leave. Like a shit Hotel California.

What is it with stairlifts? Very visible display that you're old and past it. In a society that makes it clear we don't value elderly people.

Hello everyone, can I come back please? Sorry to have abandoned you last time, it was too sad with Dad (gone now). Now I'm left just The Mother 🤪

I've followed along a little and hope you're all OK

HELLO thigh!! Great to see you!
As nota says it’s a shit hotel California.... you can check out but you can never leaaaaaave.......

Hi sandwich! Great to be back, well, you know.......

I've discovered this new coping strategy with Mum! Just not answering the phone, I'll have to at some stage I suppose.

I have to admit that I don't answer the phone when it's MIL. She gets quite affronted, apparently I am supposed to check the call log, see she's called seven times and ring her back. Silly me, I thought she might leave a message on the answering machine like everyone else does. When I call back it is invariably "I thought I'd call because I haven't heard from you for so long (sigh)" followed by a list of chores she needs me to do. Is there any wonder I don't pick up?

It's not been a bad week (touch wood). No-one has fallen or been worryingly weird. I hope everyone else is doing as well as that.

Just putting it out there that stairlifts even when agreed may not be an option. My parents were deemed unsuitable users of a stairlift by the SW and OT. It was reckoned a lift would bring additional risk and one of them would end up going down head first.

This morning brings a hospital check up appointment for DM. This will be her first trip out in public since lockdown started in March - and she has no concept of the changes that have happened (thinks it's all nonsense when I try to explain).

Hospital phoned me yesterday to ask if she had a temp etc, and explained that her temp would be taken at the entrance, and she would be given a mask to wear if she didn't already have one. And that I would not be allowed into the hospital with her. I explained she has dementia, and that she wouldn't be able to find her way to the outpatient area and back on her own. The person on the phone was insistent. I am just hoping when we get there the nurses on the door will have a solution, if not, they'll have to find a bed for her there!

And welcome back Thigh, we've missed you (told ya, you can check out of this thread, but you can never leave...)