The Cockroach cafe -new look for spring 2021

[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, with a refurbishment to celebrate the coming of Spring, 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? Previous long term resident of "Elderly Parents" 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.

@AcornAutumn, please don't compare yourself to other people & think that you are weak in some way for finding things hard going. Our past relationships have a huge effect on how we cope and your cousin's parents may not give him as much of a hard time as your mother gives you. Their past relationship may be very different to the one that was between you and your mum so their present relationship is different too. Your cousin may have a very good support network around him that eases the burden.

Spot on marmite please don’t beat yourself up acorn

[quote Ieatmarmite]@AcornAutumn, please don't compare yourself to other people & think that you are weak in some way for finding things hard going. Our past relationships have a huge effect on how we cope and your cousin's parents may not give him as much of a hard time as your mother gives you. Their past relationship may be very different to the one that was between you and your mum so their present relationship is different too. Your cousin may have a very good support network around him that eases the burden.[/quote]
Honestly, she doesn't give me a hard time.

He's the type who takes his parents on holiday. The last time was very ill advised IMHO and he spent one night up all night with his dad who had a stomach upset.

The support network thing - I have one but a) what difference does it make in reality b) it's not available in lockdown. Neither is his.

I think the difference is he loves his parents enough to do the caring bit. I thought I loved mum enough to do it.

I have to think things over. That's not something I say often. But he has all the patience, I haven't even caught up with the fact that mum needs words of one syllable.

I do blame lockdown for a lot of this but I shouldn't be taking my anger at the government into a relationship with an 82 year old who is too confused to know what's happening.

Thank you for listening.

Mere "With respect, Acorn, that’s quite a low bar"

Is it? I just think if you have children, you have some interest in family and family life...or why would someone have them?

Interest in having children and a DH, and living in small family unit, yes, interested in a social life in which my extended family, or children who've fled the nest, take a large part, not so much. The difference between having a family, seeing one or two of them at Christmas, the rest maybe once every 5 years; and having big family gatherings with all the cousins, talking to your mum on the phone every day, going on shopping trips with your sister, participating several times a day in the family facebook group or WhatsApp, is probably at least as great as the difference between me and your determinedly independent life.

and she wonders why dad frequently deckines to talk to her when she calls the home Good for him!

Minty - I'm old enough to be your Mum . (My knees aren't yet stopping me doing anything)

I have found myself looking up "remaining life expectancy" tables ... which suggest that even at 98, he can expect another 3 years. One of the reasons I get so cross with those who say "average death rate from Covid is 82 - they were going to die in a few months anyway".

but dm cannot bring herself to acknowledge it’s me who did all the catering/ graft. I had the opposite - we used to host the Committee meetings of an organisation I belong to - on the way out, everyone thanked me for the coffee.I had nothing to do with it - it was my DH who dealt with that.

I just think "a stronger person would cope." Acorn, don't compare yourself to your cousin. There's a whole lot of things in his relationship to a different set of parents which means for him, listening to his parents is not as difficult as it is for you to listen to yours.

Acorn dealing with oldies is hard and involves a lot of learning. It took me a long time to realise I shouldn't argue with my Dad when he spouts complete rubbish, or even say things that might prompt him into changing his beliefs. There are all sorts of reasons to question "British Gas is buying up freeholds without the owners knowledge, then charging them ground rent, not giving them time to pay, taking them to Court, asking the Court to enforce the debt, so failure to pay is Contempt of Court, so you will end up Bankrupt and in Prison" but to accept any of them he'd have to accept his brain is failing, and that's not going to happen. But did I realise this? No! Took me about 5 years

@MereDintofPandiculation

Mere "With respect, Acorn, that’s quite a low bar"

Is it? I just think if you have children, you have some interest in family and family life...or why would someone have them?

Interest in having children and a DH, and living in small family unit, yes, interested in a social life in which my extended family, or children who've fled the nest, take a large part, not so much. The difference between having a family, seeing one or two of them at Christmas, the rest maybe once every 5 years; and having big family gatherings with all the cousins, talking to your mum on the phone every day, going on shopping trips with your sister, participating several times a day in the family facebook group or WhatsApp, is probably at least as great as the difference between me and your determinedly independent life.

My mum knows a very close knit family who are exactly like thisand ever since I was a small child she has held them up as paragons of absolutely fucking everything.

They are very nice people but my God it drives me nuts.

Sorry that some of you have had hard weekends - heres hoping for a better week.
I didnt invite nan over this weekend, I just couldnt face it and the kids had lots of plans which would have made it too difficult. Me and dh went in several times to do a few jobs for her. She has decided against the carers....but has ordered meals on wheels. @MintyCedric I am 45 too but we are missing a generation in our family with the loss of my mum. Nan has rose-tinted glasses as to how much my mum (her daughter) would be doing if she was here. I KNOW for a fact it wouldnt be as much as she thinks...for example there is no way she would have moved in with her. It's hard to love up to these expectations especially when I know them not to be accurate

*live not love!

Hi, can I drop in sometimes? It's very heartening to read posts from people who are wrangling elderly parents, dark thoughts and all.

I'm not doing half the things some of you are doing though, my elderly (90 next b/day) DM lives on her own at the moment with just a cleaner and shopper. She is running out of reasons to put off getting carers - she's got a number of health conditions including Parkinson's - and I have a posh agency waiting in the wings while I plot to get them in her house.

It's one of my missions in life not to become her carer under any circumstances and living literally hundreds of miles away helps, as does my job. I couldn't cope with doing the things some of you folk do, but I do direct some things from a distance.

I saw her for a few weeks at Xmas (went ahead of the big lockdown), Covid has meant my usual visits about every 6 weeks have been severely curtailed (we live in different UK nations so even more complicated) so I listen to her woes twice a week on the phone. I would like to vent now and again and hopefully say something cheery to other people sometimes too.

Yeah, my dad was independent at 90 too. I don’t think I was helping with shopping then, and he wouldn’t have a cleaner. What a difference 8 years makes! But he was needing a lot of time talking through decisions.

I sometimes feel guilty that I do so much less for him than he did for my mother, but I tell myself it’s different when it’s your partner. I expect to do more for DH if it arises.

My ex husband was 6 years older than me and sometimes seemed more like 26 years older.

I wasn't keen to date someone with a similar age gap when we split but after my experiences that last couple of years, I must admit I'd rather date someone my age or younger going forward.

Which probably sound awful and of course there are no guarantees and if I met someone fabulous organically who happened to be in their mid fifties I would discount them for age reasons alone, but as far as online dating is concerned it's certainly made me think about my parameters.

Hello there Dot, pull up a chair and join us.

I am sitting in the sun, happy in the knowledge that I've done double granny day for another week. I've checked and her family are visiting today so they can shop for whatever it was she didn't think she wanted yesterday. I've suggested they bring gloves, bucket and cleaning products for the carpet because they need to deal with this themselves rather than pretending that everything is fine. Everything is not fine, I wouldn't be surprised if she's got food poisoning looking at some of the stuff in the fridge and that would explain the soiling. She's supposedly compenent but won't ring the doctor because of some slight from 2018. At some point I will burn my bridges with the family and bring in social services, but not this week because they will be here and they can sort things out. Or not, because let's just ignore it all and it might go away or become someone else's problem. The track across the living room carpet (it's not butter) is going to be really hard for them to ignore whilst drinking their tea which is why I left it for it to become their problem.

Day off nan duties today- I've got the week off but havn't told her... I want to spend time with the kids before they are too old to want to!

Today I am going to attack my own house. DH has had to go into work for a few hours, my daughter is coming to do my mum's cleaning (30 mins cleaning, 90 mins chat because that is what is most needed) and I am going to crank my music up loud and blitz my dining room which has become a sad neglected space as we are never home together in the evenings to eat there.

Morning all!

I had an impromptu day off yesterday, and mum seemed to cope really well...it was actually more at her instigation than mine after my best mate had words with her on Sunday.

Called this morning and she's in floods of tears but won't say why...suspect it's carer related .

Will pop round later anyway so hopefully will all come out in the wash.

Went for a long walk with DD yesterday and passed Dad's nursing home. He's in a ground floor room right at the front, so I went and knocked on his window and waves. Nurse was there and opened the window so we could say hello. Couldn't really understand him due to traffic noise, but he was very awake and engaged and had some.of his favourite music playing so that was really nice.

@IthinkIsawahairbrushbackthere

I'm doing dining room stuff too today!

I painted one wall black when I moved in 3 years ago with the intention of creating a gallery wall...I now have 19 framed pics and an album cover I need to find the frame for that I bought about 18 months ago, then I can start hanging

I think this article will resonate with a lot of us: Letting Go: my battle to help my parents die a good death

Well that was a very brief time of actually thinking things might be OK.

Mum has apparently just had a blazing row with the home. She phoned to ask about arranging to see dad on Thursday and they've told her there are no slots available Thursday or Friday at least and that going forward he can only have two visits a week.

She is absolutely beside herself as of course she's going in for angioplasty on Monday, and irate at the two visits a week rule so is now saying she wants him home again.

No doubt going to spend the next few days sorting out this mess before hospital duties with her.

All I can think right now is what would it actually take for me to get a real break...the only option is being hospitalised with exhaustion/mental health issues...what do I have to do to make that happen.

No one amongst the powers that be gives a single shit...I'm sure if I went and sat on the edge of the multistorey with an inch knife and threatened to slit my wrists and jump off no one who could actually help would do anything.

I'm not going to to do that obviously, because it would be pointless. They no doubt haul me off and say 'put some boundaries in place...get more carers' because we all know that's so fucking easy.

minty
If your dad has capacity get LPOA ASAP. Fill in the forms online, get them signed and send them off with the fee (£86).
Then your mum cannot bring him home or make any decisions which could harm him (or you).
I'm so sorry x

Mums in an odd mood today.
I've left her to it!
I might go down later and clean her windows (there's only 2)
I've baked some anzac biscuits and they look vile 😫

@Jenthefredo we got everything in place last year just as he was taken ill but it was never sent off and registered. I'm not sure whether it made mum hid attorney anyway so wouldn't be any use.

I have just spoken to the care home. I can see why mum gets a bit frustrated tbh. It's not the regular nurse manager we've had a lot of contact with and even to me comes across as a lot of jobsworthing.

The guy referred to the fact that is dad was end of life they'd bring us in, and I pointed out that whilst he might not be teetering on the brink he was declared 'end of life' a year ago, to which he replied 'but he seems to be doing pretty well...'

I clarified exactly what they rules are. They have two visiting slots per day but each resident is only allowed 1 visit per week from the same named person.

I asked what they were doing about the changes allowing 2 visitors per week from Monday 12th and the answer was, 'we've no plans in place as we haven't had any government guidance yet'. Apparently the last change took then over 2 weeks to implement.

I pointed out that working in schools we had to implement changes within 24 hours regardless of what government guidance was available and we were not talking about people who could die at any moment.

I have booked a slot for Saturday morning (there goes my day off...again). Mum will need to take a lateral flow test in the car park and wait for a result until she is allowed to enter, and must wear a mask and apron for her 60 minute visit. That will no doubt go down like a cup of cold sick.

I have just tried to contact the department for health and social care regarding when guidance will be issued to care homes. They are not open until 2pm so will be calling them again later.

That's harsh @MintyCedric - Sorry you didn't get your day off :(

Minty As selfish as your mother is, can she not see that you can't be looking after her needs while at the same time being at home looking after your dad? She is going to need your attention so someone else needs to be looking after your dad. I have checked and my local care home is fielding questions from family, they don't know what they are doing yet because...they haven't had the guidance.

I'm glad to hear that he's doing so well as to not be considered end of life. They have the equipment and training to make him more comfortable and there's none of this "being a burden" line when it's someone's job.

Being realistic, if you were in hospital you would be managing to do everything from a bed providing you were still conscious. My dream is a holiday with no mobile reception, if they wanted me then it would have to be bad enough to send the police to the door.

'My' holiday cottage has no mobile reception...roll on next duly.

We've been round, DD was amazing. She's calmed down although she's still unhappy.

Have told her she really needs to accept it for now, visit Saturday, have her angioplasty on Monday. By the end of next week we may have more of an idea how things will pan out.

If she insists on bringing him home, I am having no further involvement beyond a couple of social visits a week (assuming she'll let me over the threshold)!