Can I visit to help them out?

[MintyCedric]

My dad is 82. He had a call last January and broke 4 vertebrae. He's never fully recovered and is now extremely frail at under 8st. Recently he's been struggling to get out of bed and move about without help and Nurse Practitioner who visited last week said it is best to just let him stay in bed if that's what he wants and for his own safety.

Although there was no cord damage or head injury from the fall, he suffers intermittently from confusion and has difficulty with his speech.

Mum is 80 and has diabetes, high blood pressure and has had a heart attack previously. She is managing with him at home but increasingly it's a struggle, particularly in light of recent developments.

She is now struggling to cope emotionally and physically.

I've been working from home for nearly 2 weeks now and have only been out once for a click and collect. DD (15) has been home for three weeks. The only time she will be going out is to visit her dad and he and his partner have been isolating for the last 2 week's. His partner is very, very hot on hygiene and distancing.

Would it be safe for me to visit my parents more regularly to help with caring for my dad? I know it's not ideal but between our three households we are pretty contained and I can't see how I can keep leaving mum to cope on her own.

My dad is not difficult by any means but we have always been very close and I get the impression he is easier for me than for mum. On the flip side, mum is very highly strung and I'm not sure how much of what she tells me about him is open to interpretation.

I would go too and support OP. There is a balance to achieve between minimising risk of infection and giving support to avoid a breakdown in the situation. Be rigid with hand hygiene and do your best. A difficult situation but I would go

Yes you can it's looking after the vulnerable

I’m completely isolating with my dc. I’m lucky that I live around the corner from my parents but mum has Alzheimer’s and dad struggles so I am helping them out a little being as careful as I can, I can’t just leave them to it. Dsis also lives around the corner and helps too. Many elderly people have carers go in with (sadly) very little PPE and they are seeing 20 or so clients per day so if you are isolating as much as possible I can’t see how that is an issue.

That's what I thought. I've been concerned mostly because I work in a school so have been trying to keep my distance for 14 days since I was last in. I've dropped and collected shopping to and from the door step as we're sharing delivery/collection slots, and popped in to see dad from his bedroom doorway for 10 minutes yesterday because tbh I was starting to worry I wouldn't see him again otherwise.

I've had mum on the phone in tears almost every day this week and we've no other family...it's horrendous.

Yes caring responsibilities especially with the parameters you have described are fine. It's a matter of balancing risk, without some assistance they are more likely to require medical assistance which will be more of a risk.
My mum lives alone with carer visits 4times a day plus day centre access and that all fell apart pretty quickly leaving her with only one care visit a day to feed her as she will not feed herself or drink and is likely to go wandering if her routine changes. We risk assessed that the best thing would be for my brother and his gf to move in and care for her for now and this was probably safer than the multiple carers that she saw in a week anyway.
Spoke to her social worker who was relieved although we had to make it clear that this was only workable due to my brothers job being on hold once work started up again mum will need her full care package back.

Thanks for the support and sharing your stories. I'm off for 2 weeks now as it's Easter hols and hoping I can continue to work at home afterwards. I've not been rota'd on for next half term as yet but don't know if I'll need to go in at some point.

I'm on the vulnerable/stringent distancing list myself but not a 12 week isolator, although waiting to hear from GP about a couple of issues that may affect that.

Mum and dad are only around the corner luckily so think I will pop round later and try to find out what the biggest issues are and work around those.

Hi Minty
I was wondering how you were

I’d think that’s fine and covered by regulation on caring.

@MintyCedric
Hi, not sure if this would help but I also work in a school but have contacted them to say that I won't be available for the rota as I have to support elderly parents. I'm not sure on your school environment but they were completely understanding with me & I am just completing extra work at home to compensate.

Minty, could you move in with your parents, and dd go and stay with her dad? That would probably be better than you and her popping back and forth between households, even if everyone is being careful.

@AutumnRose1 Hi, how are you doing? I don't come on here much these days. I started writing when dad was recovering last year and spend most of my spare time in my little fantasy world trying to ignore RL as much as possible. Sadly it seems determined to catch up with me!

@MerlotNot that is a possibility. Work are funny about time off, they can be very supportive or the complete opposite. They are aware of my situation and if things get any worse I will definitely have to go down that route with them.

@MaryHerbert my EXH and his new partner are foster carers and currently have a slightly older teen with them. It was meant to be short term, but because of circumstances it is looking indefinite. There is no way DD would be happy to stay there (she has only stayed overnight with him about 5 times in the nearly 4 years since we split in any case).

To be totally honest, the thought of moving in with my parents is something I struggle with massively. I imagine it will come to that at some point, but we lived with them for over 18 months after I left my husband and it was the most stressful thing I have ever done.

I am 3 minutes walk around the corner so can pop in and out as necessary for the time being and see how it goes. I love my mum dearly but she is not good with boundaries. At all.

Minty, I too fear for your wellbeing if you move in with them. I stayed with a week before lockdown on the basis the authorities would allow me to return home. That was a very long week and she was very well behaved!

I got her set up with everything and the neighbours see her, from the street, daily, and the phone rings endlessly which is good.

Glad you got some writing done, I’m on drawing now!

@AutumnRose1 I've written getting on for 220,000 words of fan fiction since last May...lockdown is having very little impact on me as it's pretty much all I do when I'm not working anyway!

I'm glad you managed your week of lockdown ok.

One of the biggest issues mum and dad have is that they are in an open plan house with no downstairs loo, so moving dad downstairs isn't possible and it's wearing mum out having to go up and down stairs 'all the time'.

I will go round tomorrow and see if we can sort out some kind of arrangement for the next couple of weeks. The thing is once I'm there it's so hard to get away, although maybe if she knows I'm going in every day it'll be easier.

Yes, you can visit regularly, and it sounds like they really need the support at the moment. My DH is visiting his very elderly and frail DM every other day.

Best wishes x

Minty, I’ve got a neighbour driving to his mum, in her 90s, every day.

He can’t work and thought it better than having daily carers in, from a viral load perspective.

Once everything starts returning to normal your parents need carers to assist. My mum cared for my dad for 11 years until she was just done in. Her social worker arranged for carers to come in and in the morning the got my dad washed and dressed and out of bed via the hoist. If he didn’t want to get up that was fine they just helped was him and change him and do bed sore management. About 3pm they’d pop in to check everything was ok (this visit was soaked back as my mum was there to feed him etc, they only came if he hadn’t got up in case he wanted out of bed. They would them cone about 8 to help put him to bed (he was unable to walk) he was washed and in bed with sky tv.

Just now carers doing multiple house visits may present more of a risk than you but it’s worth putting it in place in future (they’ll also check on your mum, they used to have a chat with my mum and it was good for her).

It seems it was just as well I decided to start going round. We had a call today from the nurse practitioner who saw dad last week and had discussed his symptoms and issues with the GP.

They believe that based on his symptoms he is probably getting towards the latter stages of some kind if gastrointestinal cancer.

Mum had her suspicions a few months ago but he's refused invasive testing so nothing concrete but all the signs are there.

They are going to arrange a hospital bed and mattress to be installed at home and a care package. I'm hoping to speak to the NP tomorrow for a clearer idea of where we're at.