The Cockroach Cafe Mark 3

[MereDintofPandiculation]

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.

If your question is big, it's best to start a new thread, and get all the advice together in one place. But for everything else, the cafe is the right place.

For newbies: why cockroach? Yolo's 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. Her 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.

I've just seen this recommended on another thread and seemed worth sharing here. I've just downloaded the Kindle version.

The Selfish Pig's Guide to Caring

Thank you Minty

how are you? How is everyone?

The letter awarding mum's AA came back today, three weeks to the day since I posted it off and with Christmas in between. That's something else to cross off the list. I've spoken to her doctors and suggested that ringing her for a vaccination appointment would be a waste of their time seeing as she will have forgotten the call within the hour so they are going to call me instead. She seems to be eating again and is more like herself (although I haven't ditched the imaginary sister yet) and I feel a lot better than I did a week or so ago.

Knot That's quick on the AA.

That's great news knot well done.
Glad you are feeling better.
Just spent hours talking to BT who were going to increase dms direct debit to 53 quid! Managed to get a deal of 700 mins a month for 22......
Happy New Year's Eve all. Here's to a swift vaccine and better things in 2021.

thanks for the book recommendation Minty. Ive ordered that.

my own dad has an emergency meeting with the psyc unit on Tuesday to try to get on top of the medication for his mental health. I really hope they can help as think my poor mum is almost at breaking point with him. FIL has physio round and they are coming back next year, but it all depends on whether he bothers to keep on at it - this feels like the turning point to me - where he could go one way or the other. DP said he was sitting in the lobby yesterday, which is where he likes to sit and watch the ducks on the pond, so he must have got himself there, so I hope that means he took those steps himself. Its scary when he is frightened to try to get up and move, because that means he wont apart from when the carers come. Before he went into hospital he wasnt the most speedy, but he did manage to potter around a bit.

Best wishes for the New Year. I hope 2021 is an improvement on 2020 for everyone.

Best wishes to all for the New Year. I've also ordered that book Minty, I was sold on "thoughts of murder" as there is a longstanding household joke about an emergency patio extension.

MIL had someone out from the falls team who brought her a sheet of exercises. She would dutifully do them when he was stood with her but then - shock, horror - he stopped coming. She would not accept that she was supposed to be doing them on her own once she knew what to do, it was someone else's responsibility to make her do them. If they weren't going to come and stand with her then she wasn't going to do them.

I hope mum isn't hitting that point where you just have to agree with everything she says

Today she was saying that Sir David Attenborough "hasn't done anything" to highlight the problems of overpopulation

I explained that he's done quite a bit but she got quite angry because if she didn't see it in her paper or on TV, it hasn't happened.

Also she tried to tell us to skip care visits this week because she thinks the Tube will be completely empty. She thinks my sister's route will be particularly bad even though it's busier than mine.

During March lockdown, the Tube was very empty and she joined us in saying "oh well, take comfort where you can". What has changed? I think she has.

But I realise being isolated from her friends is probably far worse for her than for me.

Hi all, thought I'd pop in to wish everyone a happy new year and get a way from my own whinging.

Glad the book recommendation was useful - I've downloaded it but not made a start yet.

Since imaginary relatives and inappropriate comments seems to a thing I'll share a couple of little gems from my Olds this week.

Physio came out to dad the other day and was also trying to assess how compos mentis he is. Asked him how many kids he had...Dad replies '2' so physio looks at me for confirmation and I had to say 'not as far as I know'.

In other news, my mum has bought a Rabbit...

Minty maybe I'm harsh but I would hope my mother wouldn't share that information with me!!

I did ask mum if there were any sixty year old family secrets that she'd like to share with me which might explain the existance of the imaginary siblings because if there's any truth to it I'd like to know while she can still tell me. I don't think it is true, the story changes from day to day so I think she has a mental image from eighty years ago that she's trying to shoehorn into current times.

I first thought it was a rabbit as in small family pet but I'm guessing that it's the other sort? if the latter then that really is oversharing with your daughter. I'd be all hands over ears and "lalalala can't hear you".

I had to go on a very long walk after that revelation.

I'm wasn't sure whether to be proud, amused or horrified tbh.

She also turned out to be brilliant at Cards Against Humanity on Christmas Day .

This was her first attempt...

@MintyCedric

This was her first attempt...

I'm impressed 😂😂

There was me thinking about straw and furry ears... your mother is certainly quite capable of looking after her own( ahem) needs minty!!!!
If you need evidence of her ability for self care
Look no further.....

So were we. We even took out the 'worst' cards before we went round!!!

We were in fits...DD was taking pics and sending them to her mates who have declared her gran a 'legend'.

She's nothing if not multifaceted

And capable of looking after herself

@thesandwich

There was me thinking about straw and furry ears... your mother is certainly quite capable of looking after her own( ahem) needs minty!!!! If you need evidence of her ability for self care Look no further.....

Didn't enter my head about an animal

Oooh acorn you hussy!!!😂😂😂😂

Happy new year all.

I hope that everyone is ok and keeping as well as they can.

Hello nota how are you doing?

I'll fess up and say that I went abroad for a fortnight over xmas. We have a flat, so I spent the time going for walks, swimming in the sea, and eating healthily.

What it meant is that I had to step out of DM's day to day care, and hand over responsibility to DB, who in turn had to step up.

I'm in the middle of my 10 day quarantine, which has meant that when her GP phoned me re a problem with her meds and said could I just pop in and pick something up, I've got a perfectly legitimate 'no'.

I was so stressed and exhausted before I went away, with people around me telling me I was doing too much unnecessarily for DM, so I need now to find the balance of saying no more often.

Nota I hope that you spend the next five days enjoying the rest. While you are there no-one else has a need to lift a finger but look, they can do it when they need to. We all need a break from time to time (listens to hollow laughter and sobbing echoing around the room) and I'm glad that you got to have one. You should have had a month though.

It's my big exciting day out today, we're off to the vaccination centre.

nota that’s fantastic to hear. You so deserved that. Now think about how you plan to change things so it doesn’t all fall back on you.
knot glad you’ve got the vaccine for elderlies- is that both of them?
No news yet for dm 95.