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.

@Peaseblossom22 why don't you and your children write his some notes or cards and send them to him? That way he will know you are all thinking of him but without running the risk of causing him to become agitated. He will need time to settle in and become used to his surroundings.

I feel the same re DM at the moment, I am trying not to call her at the moment to give her a chance to settle down. It is hard though and I would hate for her to think that I have abandoned her.

I'm also finding the lack of communication stressful. And I also worry about dad feeling like we've abandoned him which is far from the case.
I identify with your comment about simply having no idea how he is. It feels so wrong after seeing him every other day and knowing every glory detail about his mood and bodily findings.

I wrote in his care home notes about how much he likes walking and being in the garden, and I packed his walking shoes and waterproof. But it made me sad because I have no idea whether he's able to use them and the information from the hospital has been so patchy and unclear I have no sense of what his mobility is really like.

Hello all
In case anyone else is in the over 60 group you can now book your jabs on line in England even though it says over 64 on the site. Go through and enter your Dob.
Booked today for tomoz!

I'm sure everyone knows this already

Btw I have been ill 2/3 days post vax so you might need to factor that in. Obviously I really hope not. Never have that with flu jab.

I have a friend who works as a carer, she's had the same problem. I won't turn this into a political thread but interestingly, she too felt there was an "inevitability" around having it and I think if her agency pressure her to have the next dose, that's another carer who won't be doing that work going forward.

Sorry, I mean I'm everyone is aware of the possible bad reaction!

Thanks- am aware but ready to take risk

@thesandwich

Thanks- am aware but ready to take risk

Oh I didn't mean to put anyone off.

I failed to schedule in "bad reaction" which was a bit dense of me.

Finally Dad has escaped from the hospital and has spent his first night in the nursing home. They tell me he's settling in. At the moment he's in quarantine, but he'll have a PCR test at the weekend and hopefully get out of his room and into the communal areas on Sunday. I'm off work tomorrow and have a load of social services paperwork to read through and forms to sign, but I feel happy that I know that he'll be settled in one place for the next six weeks and someone else is (literally) doing the heavy lifting.

Th ate good news. Take some time off.🌺

That's progress Daal. I hope you can relax a bit.

Good news Daal hope all goes well.

I had my jab booked for tomorrow in nearby city - about a 25 mile round trip, but had a message from GP surgery given me other options today so have cancelled and now having it on Sunday a couple of miles away.

My parents, ex inlaws, XH and his partner have all the jabs with no side effects a mixture of Pfizer and AstraZeneca.

I agree its good to be cautious though, I was reading the threads on here last night and it's worried me a bit tbh, but I am looking forward to getting it done and over with, and really pleased to have it before DD goes back to school.

I had the AstraZenica and as I am firmly of the belief that side effects are only for other people I was shocked to find that they do apply to me sometimes. I had a sore arm, night sweats and fever and I felt rough until tea time the following day even with two paracetamol every four hours. If it's what it takes for my mother to have some sort of a life with her remaining years then that's fine, it's not going to stop me standing in line for the second one.

That's good news Daal, you can relax knowing that he's been taken care of.

I had mine yesterday. No ill effects except this morning I have a dull headache. First headache for about 10 years. I am not amused. But no idea whether it's related to the jab.

It was at a hotel on the ring road, booked it just over a week ago. Then when i got home I had a text message from GP offering for me to go there. Too late, mate!

slightly off topic

but my mum refuses to do anything online

I'm starting to see why

Today I am being driven mad by a bank account, my Oystercard, the override Captcha thing, my ancient computer generally, which I don't want to pay to replace.

I am honestly tempted to go offline for many things and think that if others do, it might help. Helping mum out with offline banking during lockdown hasn't been that bad and I see from the queues outside banks that I am not the only person who wants to go offline!

I consistently fail the Captcha tests.

Jab done yesterday leaving me with a slightly sore arm and slight brain fog which is not unusual😂😂
Been pottering in the garden today which was lovely.
Hope all jabs go well- side effects seem to vary so much.
I hate those catchpa things too!

Are those the ones with the wonky letters? I am not good at those, I'd rather tick a box that says "I am not a robot".

My bank usually has a queue outside because they only let two people in at once. If one of them has a difficult question the queue can be down the pavement in no time.

@notaflyingmonkey

I consistently fail the Captcha tests.

I'm not surprised, some of them are odd and I think there's accessibility issues with them tbh, especially wonky letters!

Today I had "mark all pictures with a bicycle" but one pic was a motorbike. Is that yes or no? I think no.

But...I rang the Oyster folk and they said it's been reported a lot in the last few days, problems with the site.

I am now thinking of getting a not-online ISA. Mum seems to do quite okay with no online accounts and it must be nice not to have to remember yet more passwords. The rates are now all shit whichever way you go.

Have to be wary of mum's language. She told me just now "I've had a disagreement with your sister". Is it me? I thought that was bad. We don't argue. I had visions of sis not helping for a while and got worried...

Turns out, all she meant was, she and sis read something different in the paper about something they both find important.

So they had a chat about it, not a "disagreement".

I consistently fail the Captcha tests. I read the other day that they're using the results of Captcha tests to help train autonomous vehicles

I am now thinking of getting a not-online ISA. I do all my stuff through the branch or by post. It works well for savings that you're not planning to dip in to regularly. The only trouble is, they increasingly won't answer questions on the phone unless you've registered for telephone banking - more passwords!

How's everyone doing today? I tried having a Zoom call with Dad today in his care home and it was frustrating. He looks calmer and more himself than he did when I tried a video call in the hospital. So that's positive. But he wasn't reacting at all to anything I said. And I'm really rubbish at chatting away without getting any response.

Anyone got any great tips for communicating at the moment? I feel like video calls are all I have, but I've got no idea how to make them work or even if it's worth it.

Do you know that he can hear you? If he has the sound off/no hearing aids/no batteries in hearing aids then it may be that he's just seeing a picture on the screen with no idea that he could interact with it.

Don't look on the call as a failure, you've seen him and seen that there is an improvement from the move and that makes it worth it.

daal I’m glad your dad is looking more like himself but it must be so hard. It is early days and with COVID as well no one has much to talk about. Could you make a list of prompts or read bits of news he might find interesting? It was always hard even when we could see fil because we didn’t really want to rub in where we’d been or what we’d done.
Can he read?

@AChickenCalledDaalGlad you have seen him and he is looking better. Are they allowing visits once his isolation is over? It will go quicker than you think and then hopefully you can see him in the flesh. I do know how hard it is and how helpless you feel.

I visited mum in her respite care home today and was expecting the worst. She still looks frail but was well dressed, hair done nicely and nails painted gold by the care home staff. All of the staff I came into contact with were exceptionally friendly and caring. Had a 30 minute visit with DM, she was much more lucid than last week but still confused at times and eager to go home. She says the home is ok but the male residents are awful, lots of shouting, swearing and trouser dropping!! I didn't get to see inside the home but what I would see inside the front door looked homely. Such a relief, I don;t feel half as bad about her being there for a few weeks now.

That sounds pretty positive OnThePiste. Hair and nails done seems like a good sign that she's had plenty of attention.

Now you mention it, I don't actually know for certain if dad could hear me. Maybe he thought I was a very boring movie!!

He had headphones on and there were staff around at the beginning but then left him to it. So I couldn't get anyone's attention once we were underway. I've been told his communication isn't great, and i know he finds it hard to focus on a screen so my expectations weren't really that high but my goodness it was hard work. I've booked another call for later in the week so I'll see how that goes.

I'm going to make some notes of things to tell him that will take a bit longer that "xx sends her love"! We did a hibernating hedgehog in our garden this afternoon so that's a good start. It's the sort of thing he be delighted to hear about in normal times.