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.

Well done Yoikes dh! Hope dc is feeling better.

Old sofas gone, new sofas in situ. Phew.

Got offered an appt for a test 200 miles away...

Mum very happy with her new sofa:)

Got ds2 an appt for a test tomorrow only 20 miles away. On his birthday :(.

Got ds2 an appt for a test tomorrow only 20 miles away. Oh that's good. I was going to say, form the Coronavirus board I gather the way to get a test local to you is to give a post code 200 miles away

Yep...
Got offered tests 60 miles and over 100 miles away 🙄

...there was only us and another car there. Big sign saying "no filming"....

Hope it comes back neg yoikes

Hello all, hope you don't mind me butting in, I've been here before - a few times actually - but I'm a serial name-changer. Sorry to read about the extra mountain of difficulties caused by the current restrictions....as if it isn't hard enough anyway

My v elderly DM (90+), who's been zealously protected by me and my siblings since lockdown began, managed to trigger the nightmare scenario by falling and having to be taken to hospital to have her cuts sewn up. Was discharged after a couple of days, thankfully - but then collapsed in the middle of the night and was rushed back in by ambulance. We can't visit because of Covid and I'm finding it extremely difficult to get information out of the hospital....I ring daily for updates but feel I haven't really been properly briefed about how she is. I know they're massively overworked and have many relatives wanting info but we haven't ever spoken to a doctor apart from very briefly at A&E when she was first admitted (several days ago now).

AIBU to think it should be possible to talk to an actual doctor, given we can't visit at all? I know roughly what treatment she's having but information always has to be winkled out of the nurses who seem a bit baffled as to why I'm asking. Tbh I'm pretty scared by how groggy and out of it she sounds (I managed to get a phone in to her though she's not great at using it) and while I realise she's been badly knocked for 6, I'm worried they don't understand how mentally sharp and with it she was before this, and think she was always this way.
I'm just desperately worried really. Sorry to ramble on. Huge sympathies to everyone who can't see their loved ones at the moment.

Have you tried PALS elected? I find them to be the only way of getting info out of medical staff at times like this.

negative
Phew

Thanks not. That's a good suggestion. On one occasion I asked what medication she was being given because I was so concerned at how zoned out she sounded - which would be fine if I had reassurance that there was a medical reason, but I was told by the nurse that they couldn't tell me because it was 'confidential'.

I get the need for confidentiality but I'm her next of kin and she's a very frail patient in her late 90s, not quite grasping what treatment she's getting at the moment, and who can't be visited

Elective Have you got Health and Welfare POA? Unless I am mistaken this should enable you to be given confidential information about your DM.

We drew up an old-style EPA years ago for both parents (when DF was still alive) but haven't needed to activate it. And that's just legal/financial anyway. Good shout on the health and welfare idea exiled, and thank you, but I just looked it up and I don't think it would apply. DM does have capacity, she can make decisions, it's just at the moment she's so inaccessible with the Covid situation, and so poleaxed by being suddenly rushed into hospital, my siblings and l feel frantic with worry.

The frustrating thing is that different nurses, on separate occasions, have volunteered odd bits of information about her treatment. So it's not even consistent. I need to talk to PALS, I think.

Yes that's right, unlike the Financial PoA, the Health and Welfare one can't take effect until the person has lost capacity, either temporarily or permanently.

On the other hand, being able to say I had PoA and was next of kin was what encouraged the hospital to talk to me about my father. They didn't want any proof apart from checking with my father that he was OK for them to talk to me.

For the GP, I gave them a letter signed by him saying he wished them to talk to me, and for me to have access to his on-line records. That's been invaluable.

Thanks Mere. The GP already has me listed officially on their records as being able to handle medical affairs for her; has done for several years. For example, I order her prescriptions online because she doesn't have a computer, and the GP will happily discuss things with me whenever necessary.

Covid certainly has opened up a whole new area of worry and frustration for those of us with dependent elderly family, hasn't it? for everyone else going through similar situations.

Whenever I want to yell at my mum I come on here and read everyone else's issues and mine pale in comparison but right now I want to cry because my mum can't turn on her tv!

She is only in the garden but I am fighting for just two hours during the day when I can do my Open University course. I have been with her twice today for half an hour each time - took her to the toilet, cleaned her windows, sorted the rubbish. Went back, made her lunch took her to the loo and put on the tv.

Now she has phoned me and said "Don't come out but the tv has gone off"

"Turn it back on then"

"I don't know how!"

We have a different controller/interface from her so I went to the pic of her controller and told her which buttons to press but having turned the tv on she couldn't find BBC 1 and it's only 10 minutes before her friends arrive to visit for an hour anyway.

I know in the time it has taken to write this I could have put down the laptop and gone out to her but I just feel so frustrated. I was so excited to be doing this course but I'm already feeling it is going to be a battle even to get to my desk and open the website let alone find the time to get my head into studying.

Hello again hairbrush good to see you- wondered how things were going. Did you succeed with getting some carers in?
You MUST get those blocks of time to yourself- does your dm know/ understand about your course? Can you tell her you must attend at certain times?
This really matters. Please get those boundaries in place.🌺🌺

She is telling everyone how proud she is of me and how hard I'm working (I don't officially start until Saturday!) but it's fine until it conflicts with what she wants.

I have been out a couple of times since then - taking her to the loo, turning the lights on because if I don't she will sit in the dark until I come - and of course the tv is on.

Oh hairbrush that’s grim.
But you can reinforce those boundaries- and timer/ light sensor activated lamps???
Does she have carers at all?

hairbrush Yes, it's all about boundaries. Believe her when she says "don't come out but ..." If it's not life threatening, don't make an emergency visit.

Can you get some light sensors to control the lights, so that they come on when it's dark? At the simplest you can get bulbs that simply light up when it's dark, more sophisticated you can get programmable light sensitive boxes that you could plug a table lamp into, that will come on when it gets dark but can be programmed to go off at midnight. Or you could look at "smart" devices that you could control by your mobile phone.

And you need to turn your phone off when you study.

I have thought about smart lights and the like but her light fittings are all odd so it would be a table lamp but I can picture the conversation now "Don't come out but can you tell me what I have to say to put the lights on!"

I left my phone in the living room but could hear it ring and tried to ignore it but she kept trying and of course there is always the worry that I am ignoring it when she is lying on the floor!

Today has been better. I have decided that the morning will be my study time so I can take her the newspaper, check the tv is on and then have a couple of hours on my own before lunch. That seems to be the time when she is least "needy". I spend a couple of hours with her every evening anyway so that time isn't available for study.

I think it will be a shock to her system but I am repeating to myself that her happiness is not my responsibility. I will do what she needs not what she wants but it is hard!

I have thought about smart lights and the like but her light fittings are all odd so it would be a table lamp but I can picture the conversation now "Don't come out but can you tell me what I have to say to put the lights on!" Two ways around that - have it come on automatically at dusk (either by timer or by light sensor); or one that can be operated remotely from your phone.

If I could do it by my phone that would be amazing. I don't think she would be happy with automatic ones - she has solar lights on her fence and we have to have a discussion every night about them coming on earlier and not lasting so long when they do! I couldn't stand the strain of worrying about indoor lights as well :-)

I have wireless sockets and wireless bulbs and they all come with a phone app as well as voice control. You can either set a schedule so that they come on at a certain time or just pat the button on the phone. The scheduling was really handy for the electric blanket, it meant she didn't need to go up earlier to turn it on.

Hope everyone is doing ok.
Found this really interesting
www.psychologies.co.uk/how-care-yourself-when-caring-elderly-parent?fbclid=IwAR2yyuaKCqokthB9jq3mVLAHIoIxo3AzBy8FrOl83j8ZczNN0agE95F8LN0