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 seem to remember this was the hospital trust that Yolo was battling with
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-54333420

Oh wow! Sounds awful.

@thesandwich - thank you so much for that article - I found it really helpful

Today has been an odd day, that I’m still trying to process. I live 5 hours from DM so I can only visit every 6-8 weeks. When I do visit, it’s very hard, because she focuses on wanting to go home, which isn’t going to happen.

The strange thing is that as we were leaving, I noticed an elderly lady in the car park. “Hello, are you ok?” “No, and I don’t know where my husband is. He’s put me here, but I dont know why”

Oh good. “I’m sorry to hear that - why don’t you come with me and we’ll ring the bell?” Rings bell “hello, I think I have one of your residents with me, go you want to come to the door?”

Cue very angry reaction: “I’m not a resident, I don’t know why I’m here Etc”
The look on the carers face when she saw the missing lady was a picture

Bizarrely, having someone else (Not my DM) cross with me was very liberating.

Bizarrely, having someone else (Not my DM) cross with me was very liberating. Yes, a physical demonstration that it's the disease not the person. And the experience of facing anger but not feeling emotional upset.

My DM never particularly liked me at the best of times, so her being angry with me is nothing new.

DB was supposed to be coming up to visit DM this weekend, so I made plans on what to do with those hours (still trying to get the house presentable enough to put it on the market). He then texted me to say DM had put him off as she doesn't like him making the journey (1 hour each way). So that's my plans scuppered.

So sorry nota you must feel so cheated. Those precious hours whisked away🌺🌺
That article helped me when DM( with full marbles) said bitterly to my face that she hadn’t seen her family since February.....

I am sorry Nota that your plans for the weekend were shot out of the water. It's a pity that dear brother was so easily talked out of the journey (you can imagine my eyes rolling here).

I'm plodding along with an absence of drama which suits me just fine. I'm enjoying it while it lasts, one granny has had a scan for her "unexplained weight loss" except if they'd asked her to keep a food diary for a week then it wouldn't be unexplained. It is only a matter of time until she has a crisis, no doubt it will then be a big surprise to "the family" as I might as well talk to the wall as talk to them or her.

Hello folks (yoikes here with a nn change)
Hope you are all ok?
Spent the last 4 weeks decorating mums new flat. I'm exhausted. Its looking good and she is due to move in next Thursday.
My sister has been conspicuous by her absence ans the few things mum asked her to do she just hasn't. my brother has done the bare minimum...he was painting the ceilings. Ran out of paint. Did he just go and and get more? No. Just left it and waited for me to get more paint. Sigh.
All the admin is a nightmare...managed to sort out a new bank account and royal mail redirection today.
One of my voluntary roles has been SO busy during the past month I've been getting e mails/texts before 6am some days!
Mum seems ok. I think mentally she's already left.
I've told dh I'm having November OFF but no doubt some fucking crisis will occur 😬🙄
Take care x

nota that is exactly the sort of thing my mum does!

I've told dh I'm having November OFF but no doubt some fucking crisis will occur Be strong. Leave them to it. "I'm sorry, I can't deal with it". "I'm sorry, I just can't". Switch phones off - what you don't know about can't worry you.

Good advice dint!
MFS* was at mums today as she's taking most of the bedroom furniture 🙄
Amazing. She can always find the time when there is something in it for her 🙄

*myfuckingsister

Good advice Dint. I followed it this week, I was summoned to deal with a crisis whilst I was in the middle of a hidden object game with my mother. Instead of grumbling and feeling resentful I said no and someone else did it. I spent the rest of the day feeling guilty that I should have done it but also feeling relieved that a family member had stepped up. I think the lesson for me is that no-one is going to step forward as long as I'm there to do whatever it is but if I'm unavailable they will move themselves.

Glad you said “no” knot was it a real game or looking for something? Bit confused( easily done!)

Knot Yes! That's exactly what happens.

Sadly not a real game. I'm there once a day and it's enough time for things to move themselves and then be lost. The calcium tablets were in the box with the inhaler, the bottle with the tablets that go in the inhaler was missing. Mum had no clue what we are looking for despite using this inhaler once a day for the last three years. "Well I didn't move it" is the answer to everything. Fortunately her prescription was due so I collected that and then immediately transferred the bulk of the new tablets to a hidden container. Things usually turn up again but it makes sense to have a back up supply.

Well done Knota.

I'm in the middle of changing mum's care agency, so the manager of the new agency came out to meet us both and go through the care plan (against my advice as I knew she didn't have the capacity to get what was going on). He was there nearly two hours and answered DM's questions each time she raised them (or rather answered the same question repeatedly). He went into great detail about the new care agency supporting her at home, etc.

DM has taken from that I'm about to put her in a home, and is in a major sulk with me. When she remembers to be.

knot sounds a major challenge. So interesting others stepped up when you said no.Hold that thought....
not good luck with the new agency.... hope they deliver on their promises.

I know I'm always moaning on this thread, so apols in advance for that.

I changed DMs agency to one that was double the price of the old one, but which seemed to offer much more. A few days in, and they seem to do less. I am not impressed so far. When I had the assessment with the manager, he said I would have access to the carers notes online, where they detail what they have done on their visit. Now I am being told they can't release that to me because I have financial POA and not health. They have also said that DM has to sign the contract with them, despite me telling them she doesn't have capacity to do so. I just don't have the time or energy to deal with this, on top of continuing to do her shopping, cleaning, etc which I am paying them for!

nota that sounds rubbish. Please feel free to vent- we all need it sometimes.
That must be so frustrating having gone through the effort to find new carers. Is a social worker involved? I found the social care helpline really good- website listed companies but I asked who they suggested I call.... have been very good although small group of carers.
🌺🌺🍫🍫🍷🍷

Thanks Sandwich that's something I can look at.

I know I'm always moaning on this thread, so apols in advance for that. Don't apologise! It's what the thread's here for!

I can see their logic in not revealing care details because your PoA is financial. But the same logic should say it's absolutely you who should sign the contract, because that's mainly a financial document.

I've noticed over the last few weeks that as well as finding at least one extra task for me to do when I visit, DM has also added a thing for me to buy for her. Last week it was a bedside lamp that needed replacing, and a new alarm clock. I bought her what looked like a fairly decent lamp from Amazon, given that she'd said 'any old thing, I'm not fussy' and then rejected the one that I had bought as not being bright enough. I'm waiting for the alarm clock to be delivered so that she can find fault with that (she's 93 and does not need an alarm clock). Last night's request was for arm rest covers for her armchairs.

I'm so bloody tired of having to run round for her all the time. And the fact that she just moans at me for not doing things right.

I really really wanted to get my house on the market before lockdown, so that I could move away. But I just don't see how I can move away if that means adding on an hour's drive do her stuff when I am already exhausted with a 15 mins drive.

Nota I don't help MIL with the things she wants buying because whatever it is will be wrong in some way and I will be forever responsible for it. "That alarm clock you bought for me didn't go off this morning" for the next five years doesn't bear thinking about. I am grateful that I have a choice in this because there are other family members that will do it.

The final straw for me was a pre-pandemic shopping trip for curtains. For my new curtains, I measured up and ordered them online from Dunelm Mills but for her we had to go in person and walk up and down every aisle looking for the exact curtains she bought decades ago, then visit every aisle again looking for some combination of size, colour and fabric that didn't exist. After two hours in the shop I rebelled and suggested someone else could take her next time, when she'd had some time to think about what it was she wanted.

I do love a moan here, I don't get the opportunity in real life.

she's 93 and does not need an alarm clock Why doesn't she need an alarm clock?

Nota I found it useful to answer "Yes, of course, but I won't be able to do it before next Tuesday" You can move away. It means you will be able to do less. It may mean you can visit only once a fortnight or once a month.

Maybe your DM is craving your company, doesn't feel she can say that, so is finding a lot of errands which will mean you have to make contact? If that's the case, perhaps you can make contact in other ways? Send her a card now and again? Get a bunch of flowers delivered?

Knot I feel for your mother.We wanted a deep red carpet for our staircase just as the grey minimalist phase was starting and all carpets were pale grey, white, pale straw. We kept feeling that somewhere there must be what we were looking for - after all, they were there in abundance the previous time we'd bought a carpet (about 1980). But of course we didn't have DC in tow so we could take as long as we liked. It's one of the crap things about getting older, having to compromise because you're reliant on someone else's help.