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.

minty hope you can get some progress re residential care.
nota sounds good progress- and as you say, what happens to elderlies without daughters round the corner to chase and advocate? Dms carer does do a lot for one of her elderlies with no family- she is a very rare gem.
DWP are stopping paying into post office accounts- which sent dm into a spin which I could resolve- but what about all those others on benefits
Who don’t have anyone to help sort it?especially in COVID times.
Hope everyone else is doing ok.

Virtual chocolate cake and wine to first person who can guess what my mum's just asked.

I'll give you a starter:

"I wonder when I can....?"

Get my hair done?

@flygirl767

And we have a winner

[quote MintyCedric]@flygirl767

And we have a winner

[/quote]
Well I hope we can have this IRL at some point..although not convinced it will be anytime soon! Cheers!

Ditto...bottoms up

Well.
Had an odd morning with mum today.
She had a pile of letters from utility companies and was in a flap about them not taking any payments since she'd moved into the flat.
I sorted out the council tax issue, (it was the 6 weeks she was registered at both addresses) then the water company issue (they won't take any money out until April) and then moved onto eon....she said she hadnt paid anything to them since October...I told her that wasn't possible and asked to see her bank statements and she refused. Got quite shirty.
"They haven't taken any money out!. I've checked!"
So I said "ok, look back at the weekly balance statement texts from your bank and show me that..."
Normal payment to eon last month....
So
A) she's forgetting stuff
B) she's obviously giving money to my sister and doesn't want me to know about it
Sigh.

minty
Really hope that the various agencies pull their fingers out for your dad soon x

Oh Bee...what a palaver.

Mine keeps asking for help with tech stuff then getting defensive about letting me near her PC/mobile/tablet as she know I'll see the messages between her and 'L' .

Ugh.
Its exhausting isn't it?
I'm not going to mums this morning. I'll go later this evening.

minty not going to be a popular opinion but I really think "L" needs reporting. He's crossed a line. Majorly.
I have 2 voluntary roles dealing with vulnerable people and his actions concern me greatly.
What training did he have?

Sympathybee
And I agree re reporting L.
Hope everyone is as ok as possible.

That's the three of us. It won't be helping you mother, and probably effecting her MH.

And will add to your MH as well.

Right at the moment I think Minty has enough on her plate without starting on the relationship with L. There's only so much you can do in a day, so many battles to fight. Getting dad's care sorted has to be the top priority because that will be best for him and an immediate and major removal of pressure off Minty and everyone else in the family.

Today I have an exciting day out. a private audiology appointment. Not mine sadly but I'm thinking about it if it's the only way I can get my 12 month old ear trouble sorted.

Cheers knot hope the audiology goes ok and you manage to make time to get your own probs sorted.

Re 'L' - I've been in touch with the HQ of the agency he works for and asked for their Code of Appropriate conduct. I didn't name names but I suspect they tied things up via my email address as since then he has clarified to mum (in my earshot) that the number she has for him is his work mobile. This week he told her they can't FB message between visits. Tbh I think it's just as likely that her OTT behaviour has frightened the life out of him.

I've also made a point of visiting when he was here a couple of weeks ago and we had a 'lovely chat' about his training and I mentioned how we do very similar stuff in my job about safeguarding and appropriate conduct, accompanied by a Paddington hard stare.

Ultimately, getting dad in a care home will potentially eliminate the issue as he's here for Dad and if dad isn't here 'L' won't be coming anyway.

Naturally mum realises that if he moves, she won't have people popping in every five minutes and is starting to be difficult. We have been offered a care needs assessment for a very nice care home but:

• She doesn't like the decor
• She doesn't like the look of the manager
• He might be given a first floor room and she can't cope with the stairs
• She won't use a lift as she's claustrophobic
• She worried about any additional costs
• She'd rather he went to the one he went for respite in last year (despite not liking their co-manager either and being an absolute she-devil for the first week he was in there. I strongly suspect they're lying about not having rooms available tbh).
• She'd like to have a choice of places to look at

So its all fun, fun, fun here...again!

"Hard Paddington stare"
Excellent :)

Good luck knot today and do consider your needs too.
minty love a Paddington stare. Try some on your dm. Can her friend talk any sense into her?

"This is not about you mum" although it is, isn't it?

We have just driven past Salsdad being carefully assisted into a car by a masked and gowned carer. How very interesting (notes name of agency plastered on car). We were talking about it as I drove audiology-bound, how you can pay people to do things that you are no longer able or willing to do for yourself and how handy it must be when your daughter lives in London. "Well I'm not at that stage yet" says she as I take her to the appointment that I've arranged that she had forgotten about. She's coping fine all by herself because she doesn't have any help, clearly I don't count.

As soon as I am able I am going on holiday and a care agency can do daughter-stuff. It might be clear then just how much I am doing to keep the show on the road.

Oh knot I hear you! What we do is invisible to them because we get on with it and don’t make a fuss. Milk money, papers, checking what shopping is needed..... arranging appts, taking to appts...... we are daughters so it doesn’t count.......
Yes, research the agencies! Dm has 3 visits a day but the rest of everything is down to me........ they refuse to acknowledge how we prop them up, probably because it’s too scary.
🌺🌺🌺for you.

Do you wonder if we'll be this oblivious when we're older despite what we're all currently experiencing.

Dad in pain again despite having the slow release morphine. Phoned Echo team..."you can give him oramorph and paracetamol as well..."

Great. I have honestly run out of energy or adjectives to describe the complete shit show that is our so-called elderly care system.

God bless the NHS, but what would happen if DM didn't have a 'daughter round the corner' to sort all this? Some family relationships are toxic, but, much as people say "you choose your friends, you don't choose your relations", ultimately it is family rather than friends who are still around "to sort all this".

@MintyCedric

Do you wonder if we'll be this oblivious when we're older despite what we're all currently experiencing.

Dad in pain again despite having the slow release morphine. Phoned Echo team..."you can give him oramorph and paracetamol as well..."

Great. I have honestly run out of energy or adjectives to describe the complete shit show that is our so-called elderly care system.

Great. I have honestly run out of energy or adjectives to describe the complete shit show that is our so-called elderly care system.

The thing that gets me is how I am expected to keep all of the knowledge relating to DM in my head (when I took her for her Covid vaccine I was asked what meds she was on, and despite usually having this on my phone, for some reason I couldn't find it). Or when the consultant calls, he asks me what sort of skin cancer she had before, when she had her pacemaker fitted, etc.

I work full time and am often in meetings, or at least working, when I get these calls and it takes me a while to switch into daughter mode.

No bugger calls DB and asks him all this.

Don't think I'm going to bother trying to pull a quote off again...

I've told my son that I will be picking out a nice retirement complex for myself because I will not put him through what I am going through now. I won't be staying here because it's lovely but rural enough to have an appalling bus service. It's fine while you are able to drive but otherwise it's hard to leave the village. I will be moving somewhere where I can walk to things or where there's a bus more regular than hourly (plus or minus fifteen minutes).

If I wanted a job as a carer then I'd have to start by showing some aptitude (why do you want this job? well I don't...) and before you were let loose with clients there would be a shed load of training. As an employee you have rights, limitations on your working hours, training, supervision, a clear idea of what's outside your job description and you get to leave it all behind when you clock off. There are two of you for some tasks, when you're sick someone else does your work and you can have a holiday without the expectation that you will be taking your client with you.

I would like to go back to being fun-daughter. I'm all for preserving independence but what I'm doing at the moment is preserving the image of independence. If mum has carers in then she is recognising that she's not doing those things for herself, as it is she's not doing those things and hasn't been for some time. She's able to kid herself that she's perfectly capable of taking her tablets, cooking a meal, ringing the gp, understanding her bank statement because she's not having help to do these. She is, it's me but I don't count.