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.

soup welcome! Plenty of room here- vent away!
minty great advice from knot and I suspect your df is doing better because of consistent care.......

Oh smashing thank you! It's like this - in an attempt to get my two safe and well, life sometimes blows me a raspberry. My examples are insisting smoke alarms are installed on the ceiling to avoid loss of same in the melee but that meant my sibling when cooking absentmindedly and set them off, then chose to smash off the alarms with a ? broom? Dunno. So have to be rebought and reinstalled. Yesterday feeling sure that mum would benefit from a hoover round her chair where all sorts of bits collect I sternly informed mum she must ask for this hoover and move to another chair meantime - and afterwards realising that was largely howling into the wind as given her best endeavours she can barely remember who is on the phone - feeling I was Mrs Organised ringing the care agency and stating that had to be done. Now of course mum cannot locate her remote control which must have got moved during this intervention so I have a small very vague mama with no company (sibling in hospital) until Monday carer, staring at a grey screen unless I drive over 200 mile tomorrow to sort this out. Much else can be done tomorrow at mum's house it is true, and I had only just decided not to go given weather forecast, when I phoned to tell her I wasn't coming and got the missing remote frustrations. We did a kind of snail pace challenge Anekka without video to try and locate but no.

Sometimes I do actually laugh at what happens when it seems so ironic, and at the same time all this has changed me somewhat. Mum told me yesterday i sounded like her old Headmistress.

I think I hoped to hear similar, anyone got anything for me that makes me feel less of an ineffectual doomed entity that fate seems to turn to now and then for a bit of light relief!

Soup

Hello ruleofsoup. I have the declining sweet mother but without the addicted sibling. One is bad enough without the other on top.

I'm planning a day off this week, I need to switch from daughter duties to mother duties and take my long suffering son back to university. He's been a star, when it's been an afternoon of non-stop phone calls he'll pick up and tell her I've gone out for a walk. I'm pretty sure she won't take her tablets or eat anything other than banana and ice cream without me to make it happen but it's only one day and it's easier to skip it than fight to get a carer in as a one off.

Hi Knotaknitter. Doesn't it help when the parent is appreciative and pleasant, we seem to be in the lucky minority with it. I read in the cafe that so many are not.

Welcome soup that does sound trying...is the sibling of any help at all?

Knot I hear you...but when the hell do I get a break?!! I am absolutely desperate for some time to sort some houses things out and actually look after myself. I've slipped with the diet and exercise, keep forgetting my meds and haven't done any writing for over a month. Literally the only thing I do outside of parentals is watch TV and sleep because I have no energy or bandwidth for anything else.

What you're saying makes a lot of sense, but my fear is that the more I give the more she'll demand. I'd also quite like to spend some time with my own daughter at some point.

The thing is she doesn't really have any interests or hobbies, she just likes to have someone present all the time.

She'll do a bit of DIY, but otherwise naffing about on the computer and watching endless quiz show repeats are it. She doesn't read, listen to music or watch films or anything fictional. She has diabetic neuropathy in her hands (as she tells me on a daily basis) so I imagine anything in the way of sewing etc is now off the agenda.

She has lost many of her friends now, and of the remaining:

1/ not local
2/ local but younger/still working/some family commitments
3/ local/younger/absolutely huge family all local and close knit.

She will also make absolutely no effort to engage or help herself and I can't help but feel the more I prop her up the more dependent she'll become.

I've suggested things she can do, DVDs she could watch, she has piles of quiz/brain training books. I've offered to take her to the garden centre or put for coffee and suggested she comes to me which would at least mean I could get a few things done while she potters and chats and fussed the cats. All I get in response is "I just can't, I'm to depressed, I don't feel like doing that/anything/eating/going out"..."if I phone them they'll be out/with family etc etc"

It's like banging my head against a brick wall for several hours a day.

She's messaged me today referring to bringing dad home again and stating "I know you think I'm being selfish but I just can't stand being alone this much".

She has had one whole day on her own in the last two weeks.

She just wants me to concede defeat and agree that we can all move in and be on happy family over my dead body

Soup, that sounds hard. Could care agency get someone to pop in to hunt for remote? It’s all the little crises that floor us.
Glad your dm is sweet. Mine has marbles, but can be v negative and will not acknowledge how much I do for her- which makes it easy to step back and not feel guilty.
Knot glad you are taking a day to be mum. A day of banana and ice cream as a one off is no bad thing.
Can you leave any healthy treats iin sight? Or even unhealthy ones? Dm has a little biscuit tin by her chair where chocolate ones vanish at an astonishing rate.....

And whatever the personality, the concerns remain the same I do see that. I regularly order via Tesco a lot of sweet stuff for mum because it's what she wants, along with the "I need" salad and cold meats and so on I end up chucking out and mentally calculating the cost of the waste. Bananas always pleased to see those eaten chez mum though, and oh my goodness she has found the remote and not only that called me to let me know. Phew!

Wohoo! One thing I have learnt is that not everything is a crisis and can often be resolved by someone other than me....l

Thank you Minty. Sibling often of much help, often architect of much drama and frightening aspect depending on position in addiction cycle. Poor decision making is now the norm across the board.

Thesandwich I read what you say, and I see it don't apply to me and if it did I would be so very angry. What kind of maturity does a person - you - have to have to deal with that. Good grief. Thanks for describing the position.

@Firstruleofsoupover

Thank you Minty. Sibling often of much help, often architect of much drama and frightening aspect depending on position in addiction cycle. Poor decision making is now the norm across the board.

Thesandwich I read what you say, and I see it don't apply to me and if it did I would be so very angry. What kind of maturity does a person - you - have to have to deal with that. Good grief. Thanks for describing the position.

Welcome soup And hello all

Sorry if being dense

What would make you angry?

Hello acorn I think soup meant if her elderly would not/ did not acknowledge what she did for them despite having full marbles it would make her angry....
Did I interpret that correctly soup?
I remember needmoresleep veteran of these boards saying it is about who we are not who they are.... so we do what we can.
And a hefty dose of counselling over the years has helped. Plus I am aware of trying to be someone my dd would respect and value.

Kind of loving that we now have soup and sandwich on the same thread

That sounds hard @Firstruleofsoupover , surely she cannot expect you to drive all that way for the remote?? Thank goodness she found it!
@MintyCedric shes on strong Zapain (paracetomol/codeine) but apparently they dont touch the pain...
I just phoned her and she said she missed me today cos my sister 'doesnt stay long'. She seems to be getting more reliant on me by the day - I really need to share this load but she only seems to want me....

Not being dense at all AcornAutumn it's me not being all that good at communicating. I mean if I was usually met with negativity despite my efforts then I would be angry. I'm usually appreciated although there are always spats when something new proposed. There are times in the last few weeks though when I would like to reclaim my own life and try and push that forwards a bit.

Sandwich totally you have it there.

Now where is Ms Crackers.

Oh I see

For a minute there, I thought it was anger about food that oldies are eating..ignore me!

Soup, sandwich, chicken, daal, mint..

@MintyCedric

She's messaged me today referring to bringing dad home again and stating "I know you think I'm being selfish but I just can't stand being alone this much

My mil did this with her dh , he'd been ill awhile a kept saying he didn't need the doctor ( didn't want to bother the dr) and that she could look after him.
This was because she had a fear of being at home at night alone . Her fear came true because he died at home of an infection.

Wishing all in the cafe an uninterrupted night and thanks for the lovely welcome. It was appreciated.

Oh Soup I am so glad I am not the only one who gets calls about a missing remote. Although I just have to go outside and across the garden to search for it.

She misplaced it last week and called me on the phone to ask me to look for it. When I got there she was holding the remote and said that the phone had now stopped working. She was trying to call my cousin using it.

Mum's eyesight is very poor and she is very limited in what she can do. I do try and keep the tv interesting for her because without it she is sitting in near darkness and quiet.

I changed the phone earlier this year after repeated complaints that only one of the phones was working. The others were tv and satellite remotes but no amount of labelling would stop her trying to call on them. She would also put it down without ending the call so the line was engaged for fifteen hours at a stretch. She now has a phone with a handset attached with a cord and the preset numbers are on big buttons. I wish I'd done it years ago because she can actually use it.

Saw mum yesterday and golden bollocks turned up to pick up something she'd bought for him!
He has convinced her to get (yet another) new mobile phone. The newest Samsung. She only uses her phone for calls and texts ffs.
She can afford it I guess 🤷
I just smile and nod these days ☺
She's coming for lunch today. She usually eats then leaves so its a quick visit!
Back to school/college here tomorrow so hopefully I'll be back in more of a routine again.
I might even try to go into a (gasp!) Non essential shop 😁

I love my label maker!
I've been able to label the sockets mum shouldn't touch (she turned her new freezer off the day after we filled it to the brim with food...)
And have put her landline number on her landline phone so she can read it.
She's got a tablet but she relies on me/siblings to order stuff for her/check e mails.
She's just signed up for online banking! (I've been begging her since dad died..)
She's coping ok atm but that's with daily visits from me and me always at the end of the phone.
The copd nurse (i think) phoned her on Thursday because of the email I sent regarding a rescue pack of meds.
Except that mum can't remember who it was she spoke to or what was said (this is not new. She just doesn't seem to listen after a certain point. She also panics about medical stuff)
Sigh.

Knot I would have given a purse of gold to have a phone system, mobile and tablet mine could actually use properly. I repeatedly suggested replacing them up until a couple of years ago then gave up. She's probably past the point cognitively where there would be any benefit now (Parkinson's brain fog) and she can still use the landline. I did manage to replace the complicated satellite hook up and ancient telly she was still using when I went down at Xmas, so have fewer episodes when I phone and she says: 'It's gone black again".

Soup I have an addiction problem (alcohol) in my past, thankfully many years behind me but it taught me to draw very careful boundaries around what I can and can't do and I would find dealing with an elderly parent in crisis very difficult if I were actively drinking and it would not be good for anyone. I hope you are able to talk about it as siblings.

On the hobbies front Minty, I wonder if there's a lack of motivation to 'find a hobby' because that's not what they really want. My mother only ever liked outdoors things and now she's very compromised with mobility she is at a permanent loose end but what she wants is someone with her all the time really because she's no good in her own company (although she's socially not great either, bad combo) and it's not possible of course.

I have gone ahead and sent the email to activate the high-end care agency, ominously they have only got back to me with a brief place-holder so I'm hoping that doesn't mean they don't have capacity. I have another three agencies on the list ...

Quite possibly Binary.

Mum is also not really a 'woman's woman' and of course she's of a generation where the majority of her peers are likely to be quite traditional.

Mum has always been much happier behind a power tool or under a car bonnet than in the kitchen or knitting along to the radio.

I've suggested she looks at some other companion options - "maybe a woman?" - but I think she's convinced that all women her age will want to talk about is grandkids, recipes, crochet and soap operas so she's not very motivated.

Off round there in a minute although feeling quite ropey so hoping to make it a quick visit.

Mum has always dismissed the social options I have suggested because they will be full of old people. She has never stopped for a moment to consider that she is the same age as the "old people" that she is writing off sight unseen.

Minty if your mum can fix things and put shelves up she will have a roomful of friends in no time flat.