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.

@MereDintofPandiculation that's interesting and makes a lot of sense.

Dad has always been adventurous with food and enjoyed cooking on the rare occasions he was allowed

It really makes my heart melt a bit when he asks for something specific or enjoys something I've made, because he has so little pleasure left in his life, and being able to give him that, even it's just a couple of mouthfuls is really lovely.

Minty Cedric have you asked your mother about what the career over heard? She got the offer of night careers and she turned it down. Meanwhile your giving up your night's and sleeping on the couch. Your missing time with your daughter. You have taken time off work and a financial hit to help her out as well.
You need to decide if you're still willing to do the number of nights you have been doing after what she did and said. The reality is that she is taking you and your time for granted. She expects you to keep putting her needs 1st.
The reality is she could give more time at home at night. I think it's time you talked to her about the number of nights your their. I also would not take any extra time off work either.
I would start to make a plan about her care long term which you are not going to do.

Completely agreellady
The more you do, the more she will expect. Step away.

I only stay over one night a week, which isn't unbearable. Sometimes we have a good time, but could do without the sofa!

The little room has a cheap single bed and a small noisy fridge in it so I genuinely prefer the sofa and I'm usually up and down anyway because unlike mum, I can hear dad in the night (which is usually him sleep talking or being a bit delirious rather than anything serious).

We had yet another lengthy chat last night and I suggested she asked the companion carer agency if they can send someone else along a few times with the usual guy so she can get used to them in the event of needing extra support or me being unavailable and she seems to have taken this on board.

She also seems to be primarily considering two options for assisted living once the inevitable happens, rather than still debating staying in the house or moving to a flat/bungalow independently, which is progress.

She wants me to help her start getting things sorted so that she can move fairly quickly when the time comes.

On a slightly different note - we watched Greg Davies - Magnificent Beast on Netflix last night.

A lot of it was about his batty mum and some experiences they have with his father prior to him passing away, including interactions with carers.

It was very relatable and very funny...if you've got a slightly dark sense of humour I'd definitely recommend it.

Minty, you can turn the fridge off overnight and the contents will stay cold until morning. I've done this in several holiday lets because I can't sleep with any noise. A mattress topper might put some life into the bed and then you have a better set up than the settee.

That's not a bad idea Knot...I might see if I can pimp the room a bit!

I am thinking to leave MN

I wanted to get this out of my system before the guilt chokes me

How many times can we fake it in front of elderly parents - dreading the future and how long they might live? Knowing full well we will better off without them - but still pretending to care while doing the caring?

Oh Acorn

I'm guessing you're having a horrible day/weekend.

Sending virtual hugs and am going to PM you - hope that's ok?

Acorn when things were beyond tough, I used to wonder if the hardship of caring for elderly parents was nature's way of making it easier to let go. Sort of when you have teens and you sometimes wish they could move out.

Don't feel guilty, I learned (too late) it was important to put boundaries in before I reached rock bottom. It's even harder to act lovingly when you don't have any more to give.

AcornAutumn Unless you've had a truly dreadful relationship with your parents and all love had been lost before they needed any care, it isn't that you don't love them at all now, it's just that those feelings have been completely buried under the intolerable pressures of caring for an adult who can do very little to care for themselves (and who may even wish that they were already dead). You keep going because you need to be able to respect yourself; and, if you have children, because you are a role model.

Of course, if all love had gone before the need for care arose, there's nothing to feel guilty about.

Presumably care workers have the same conflicts, wishing that this particularly difficult old person would hurry up and shuffle off, in the hope that they'll be replaced by someone easier.

@AcornAutumn

I can't PM you but if you'd like to chat off thread you're very welcome to message me.

I've had some horrible dark thoughts about my Olds in recent months, and I think it's entirely understandable. The sheer relentlessness of it would be tough at the best of time without everything else we're having to cope with.

I hope you can make time to take care of yourself for a bit today

acorn please don’t go. We hear you in this little corner of mn.
Vent away.

Acorn I will always love my mum but most days there isn't much of my mother left. I've had days where she thinks I'm the carer or tells me how wonderful my other sister is (I don't have one). However long I stop it's not enough, she's ringing for a chat before I've got the car back on the drive. In her ideal world we would be joined at the hip, never apart. (For any sancimonious fly by who wants to remind me how she was always there for me as a child - no, actually she wasn't)

It's not just you, it really isn't. Just at the moment with the support options for them and for us having vanished it is especially difficult. There's no chance of me running away somewhere with sun and no phone service leaving someone else to get on with things. I never signed up for this, mine was the daughter role - let's do lunch and shall we go to a garden centre? How come I'm now an untrained, unpaid carer with no-one to ask questions, no support, no days off?

My escape plan is respite care where she has lots of people to chat to. She's lost her hearing aids so that's off the board until she can hear again. My dream is for her to love it, sell up and move into residential care. I can go back to having the daughter role and ditch the medication/cleaning/gardening/bathing/laundry/remembering where everything is/stocking the fridge and freezer and drop this fantasy that she's managing just fine at home.

acorn
My heart goes out to you 💔
I am not close to my mum. Never have been.
I was very close to my late dad.
My brother is the golden child and my sister is the one who is pandered to due to her dreadful moods/strops.
She wasn't a good mum. Well, not to me anyway.
I don't love her.
But I feel a huge obligation because of my dad, and because she is now lonely and very frail.
She made me her POA and if she starts to need more care and loses capacity she will be going into a home.
My siblings certainly won't be queuing up to care for her!
I know I sound crass and uncaring but I do everything for mum and will continue to do so until I can't anymore.
As it stands I can look myself in the mirror and know I've done my best.

Today's job:
Putting a new lightswitch plate on.
Which took a load of plaster off so then I had to do some polyfilla-ing.
Her prescription I collected last week is missing an inhaler so I need to go out in the foot of snow tomorrow to sort that with the pharmacy.
Sigh.

🌺🌺 to you both knot and shrill
This wasn’t what I signed up for. Had to go up to dms with wonderful dh in 5 inches of snow to put her to bed and will have to go in the morning to help her dress. Carers can’t get there because of snow.
As you say, we do it because of who we are, not who they are.
.

Great way to put it sandwich
Hope the snow has cleared a bit by tomorrow x

You are not alone Acorn. I have said before on this thread that I feel bad for just going through the motions with DM. She is demanding of my time, and gets very bad tempered with me if I don't comply.

Since I changed care agency I have been able to step back as they do her cleaning, laundry, etc so most visits I aim to not have to take my coat off, but even the briefest of visits to take milk etc still takes the minimum of an hour door to door. Plus having to do all of her life admin.

I can strongly recommend having to quarantine though - it meant I could say 'no' to all requests without any guilt.

nota that is brilliant news about the new agency. But it took you getting to breaking point to back away...... so glad you got away and had quarantine to regroup....
Been up to mums to get her dressed this morning- could only do it with lovely dh and yak tracks on boots.... snow is beautiful but I hate it. Maybe back tonight......
@acornautumn hope you are ok.

to everyone struggling with conflicting feelings about their parents

DM went into a nursing home last year when she developed dementia very rapidly. I constantly feel guilty that I'm not more upset and that I don't miss her more - mostly I felt relief. She wasn't the best Mum when I was a child, but was better with my DC.

Thanks all for the sympathy re the incessant calls and demands from my aunt and mother. Thanks also dint for those wonderful cats in a box pictures they made me smile, mine love boxes and small places. I found one of mine up the chimney last week! Just his nose peeping out- luckily I was not about to light the fire otherwise it could have ended badly.

acorn I don't know your experience of MN but here on this thread I have had nothing but understanding and kind words in my times of great anguish. I would stay on MN just for this thread even though I can go weeks without checking in.

I spoke with Admiral nurses about my mum and her phone calls and ramblings on Friday, they were brilliant. Suggested a care plan for my mum which includes limited access to her telephone and keeping her more occupied so that she is less restless. She told me that many people with dementia living in care homes think they are on a cruise ship or a hotel and that her constant calls are an indicator that she is experiencing anxiety and feeling vulnerable. Probably linked to her three days in hospital last year when she fell and broke both her wrists which was when she nosedived again with her ability to understand the world. She also suggested that mum might be suffering pain and not able to articulate this and this could be affecting her ability to hold onto the here and now and to include offering her painkillers in the care plan.

They told me not to feel guilty about not answering the phone to either of the two sisters and to offer my aunt a solution that a friend will call her if anything happens to me, but no number to be given out for my aunt to call.

Mum has been calling less frequently the last few days but when she does she tells me she is exhausted from all the travelling she has been doing! I tell her I am envious because we are all cooped up indoors and not allowed out, I know its a sneaky way of telling her she is mistaken but it helps me and we laugh about it.

I just wanted to say also that I really feel for those of you who are where I was a while ago trying to get my mum into a care home, it must be extra hard now because you cannot visit to assess the places- how you are managing I do not know, I shudder to think what my mum would be like if she was trying to live independantly through Covid, I think she'd have been arrested and possibly been forced into care via a DOLs order.

The care home have just called as I writing this to tell me that a specialist from the dementia care team is going to visit mum on Friday, I am so relieved to know that they are taking this change in her demeanour seriously.

Thanks again everyone. Keep on keeping on.

mx so glad you have had some great advice re your dm and aunt.
And that your dm is getting some expert help.
cockroach all.

I've just had enough today. Much looked forward to seafront walk ruined by DM calling incessantly. Panicking about cooking evening meal even though I've upped the care package so the carers will do it. I was very short with her, especially when she started moaning about the M&S ready meals I'd bought (which she told me were delicious last week) and she wants "proper" food.

Just rang her and she was off to bed at 5:30pm. Told her it was too early and she would be awake all night and she needed to wait up for night time carer to administer meds. She told me I was a nag. Told her to do what she likes then and hung up. Feel bad now even though she won't remember. Sigh. I know I should be more sympathetic but I'm not. I spent pretty much all day with her yesterday but it's never enough.

Is it wine time?

It is never enough and I think that's important to remember.

I went to check on mum today through the snow and ice (I live at the top of a very big hill but I managed to get there and back in one piece) and was greeted with the words "what are you doing here??" 😅😅
Oh, well.