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.

There are gadgets for helping with socks which would mean that Senior Baroness could do it herself without having to ask dad.

Just spoke to dad .

His speech has improved remarkably since he's been in the home...I can only assume it's because he's better rested and getting good food and regular meds. I don't think he'd have managed a 7 minute phone call in a million years previously.

Had to explain about the visiting rules again as he was most annoyed that I haven't been in to see him (haven't phoned as much I should either tbh ) and is very concerned that they are moving his birthday...he knew the date of it too!

I explained that his birthday is on Friday and that mum's coming in and I'm making his favourite chocolate macarons for her to bring in. He remembered me making them for him a couple of months back.

Told him that I'd call him tomorrow afternoon as I have an x-ray tomorrow and he was quite insistent he wanted me to bring in the cakes first. Had to remind him again that his birthday is on Friday so he'll have to wait .

Ugh..feeling like I am doing double loop the loops on that damn roller coaster today! If it's not one thing its another..I just feel like my whole life has been taken over by DM and her needs again.

She has a great army of carers but still the phone keeps ringing, if they dare to be even a minute late it's moan, moan. She moaned in the care home desperate to get home, now she's home, more moaning. She does show gratitude to me which is great but it's just the though of X amount of years of groundhog day. I was looking forward to her coming home, now I am wishing she was back in the CH, is that bad? I can't concentrate on anything, feel like I have butterflies constantly which I know is anxiety. I need to step back, I feel like I am micro managing everything (i.e ordering medication) but at least if I do it I know it is done right, the carers tend to leave it to the last minute and then she invariable runs out of them.

Anyway, that is my moan for the day. Really looking forward to a full days work tomorrow as mum knows she can't phone me and I can get a few hours peace!

@MintyCedric it sound like your DF is being very well looked after. It's amazing what some good food and attention can do!

@OnthePiste sorry you're having a rough time.

I think sometimes it is not so much the doing as the fear of how long its going to go on for, then the guilt for feeling that way.

I'm sure I've said it before but when I see people talking about caring for parents in their 90s my blood runs cold tbh.

I quite often have low level anxiety attacks when I have to visit my parents...it's a horrible feeling on several levels.

I'm sure I've said it before but when I see people talking about caring for parents in their 90s my blood runs cold tbh. I think there's a limit to how long it takes, usually. My Dad is 98 ... but he was fit enough at 86 for us to take him caving. If you're looking after parents in their 70s, they probably won't make it to their 90s.

@MereDintofPandiculation

I'm sure I've said it before but when I see people talking about caring for parents in their 90s my blood runs cold tbh. I think there's a limit to how long it takes, usually. My Dad is 98 ... but he was fit enough at 86 for us to take him caving. If you're looking after parents in their 70s, they probably won't make it to their 90s.

My father took early retirement on health grounds more than 30 years ago, has been disabled since a bout of sepsis nearly 20 years ago, and is still going at 83... Care needs have ramped up gradually over the past decade, and that process is now speeding up, but I never thought he would make it to his 80s.

Hi all - Minty Chicken Daal Soup Sandwich - perhaps we should rename the cafe?

I might have to start using my mum's PoA soon. I have a vague recollection that someone here mentioned it can be different how hard or easy it is to use depending on if it was registered before a certain date in 2019? Anyone know anything about this please?

Thank you.

Hi all
I'm not neglecting you
I got banned
I expect this account will be deleted

Good luck and thank you for helping

Had a lovely day with mum, lockdown has ruined me...none of this is her fault. Just wanted to restate that before they ban this account.

@AcornAutumn

Hi all - Minty Chicken Daal Soup Sandwich - perhaps we should rename the cafe?

I might have to start using my mum's PoA soon. I have a vague recollection that someone here mentioned it can be different how hard or easy it is to use depending on if it was registered before a certain date in 2019? Anyone know anything about this please?

Thank you.

My mum's was registered 8 years ago. I started using it last year firstly with the bank. It was pretty simple, I took a certified copy into the bank and they filled out the paperwork with me there. I was then contacted about a week or so later to tell me I could have my own bank card and was authorised to use her account. I also had to send a copy by email to an insurance company and they were happy with that.

Sorry I don't know anything about the pre/post 2019, maybe someone else will come along who can shed somelight.

I've not had tea yet so don't trust myself to make sense but there was a thread about registering LPA here

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/elderly_parents/4188964-LPA-access-code

Acorn I was on another thread with someone who was banned quite regularly, don't you just need another email address and reregister?

Acorn, I hope you are ok. Lockdown is not a normal way to live.

Knot, thanks, I think we have one somewhere, think it was flung in the cupboard by dm a couple of years back. Time to get it out.

Sending hugs Acorn...Covid or elderly parents alone would be hard, coping with both simultaneously...

I know where you're coming from

acorn don't leave us. Hope you are ok.

Acorn, remember we'll always leave the back door open - you just need to hop over the wall.

I've had no trouble using my father's PoA, registered 2010. Slight hiccup with Yorkshire Building Society who wanted me to either declare he lacked capacity or get everything signed by him, but were satisfied with me writing to say that he found correspondence from building societies stressful and, although able to make decisions, he was unable to make timely decisions.

It's easier if you can go into branch - they'll photocopy the PoA and give it back to you. Less easy if you're dealing at a distance where you have to get certified copies. The Post Office has a document verification service £12.75 - I don't know if it extends to multi-page PoAs.

I activated my father's LPA with Lloyds a few months ago and was able to do it all via phone/website with scanned copies of the LPA. It was a fairly recently drawn up and registered LPA, though.

I hadn't heard of the code thing, which sounds like a very sensible idea - I will check the docs to see if we have one, as DF is going rapidly downhill and I am going to have to take on more admin stuff.

We are going through this process with one set of parents at the moment. As above, Lloyds is straightforward with a 20 minute phone call and scanned copy of the lpa. We have the code thing as the LPAs were done in the autumn of 2019. All institutions have a different system. The only one we are dealing with which uses the code is NS&I. NatWest have a form to fill in. There doesn't seem to be any consistency. Except that everyone has rejected the information on the OPG site about the owner of the LPA being able to certify their own LPA!

btw have been lurking here since Yolo's mum broke her arm, picking up tips for the future (4 Ps/ILs in 80s and 90s). We have got away lightly so far apart from a dramatic month when 3/4 were hospitalised. Best wishes to all who are struggling, I may be joining you one day. Thanks to sandwich who got me brownie points with my Ps (I have a dressage horse DB) for getting them a refund on the LPA cost after her alert at the end of January

Hello cockroach ! Welcome to your cafe! Glad to have been of service!!!

My mum has really annoyed me tonight and rather than rant at her may I moan here please!

DH and I would love a holiday together - the last time we went away on our own was 8 years ago but because of mum it's just not possible. We have different ideas of what would make a good holiday but watching a tv programme about river cruising with mum I mentioned that I think it would be a holiday that "we" would like.

Mum "Oh, do you think so?"
Me "Yes I think Chris and I could both do what we like that way."
Mum "Oh - you mean without me?"

I am so fed up with her expecting me to include her in everything we do.

She is the reason we can't go out, I can't even go shopping without organising everything she needs and going straight to her when we come back but she sulks if I even suggest fancying something that doesn't include her.

Hairbrush sympathies. Are you giving her a lot of power by being afraid of her sulks though? I had a yearly holiday with DM, then a holiday or two of my own with friends etc, and never told her about the other holidays until the day before in case her subconscious had a chance to get working.

Useful chat about LPoAs. I have both types for DM, registered for about 8 years but never wielded. I'm about to find out what happens with HSBC when I ask to be able to (co-)operate DM's current account and a different telephone savings account. I need the current account to be online, as I live a long way from DM. She has never had any e-banking so I'm anticipating a bit of a saga.

Hairbrush We broke away for a holiday together and survived. By then it had been summer holiday and a couple of weekend breaks a year for fifteen years so it felt like a big break. I emphasised the hills that come with fjords, the potentially iffy weather and that she gets seasick easily when I told her that we had booked a holiday together. It went better than I expected.

Just do it. You married him, it's not unusual that you would want to spend time together and she'll either enjoy her independence or appreciate you more when you come back. Let her sulk, what's she going to do? Send you to your room, ground you at the weekend? You are both adults now, you're not six and you don't have to accept her word as law.

Hi hairbrush, I know that tone of voice well!
Enjoy your holiday.

I wish I could but I can't leave her. She needs more care than the care company can give (4 visits a day). She needs someone to take her to the bathroom, turn on the TV, make her meals.

Unless my daughter comes to stay I'm trapped.

Oh hairbrush, that is really difficult. Do you get any time to yourself?

Residential respite care is an option, she can have a week in a care home while you have a week away. She will have more company than she gets at home, there will be activities, all meals provided and someone there to turn the lights on and off and sort out the tv. It will probably cost less than her going on holiday with you and it will give you a break from caring which is the whole point of a holiday. It's no rest if you are taking the cared for person with you (which my own mother spectacularly fails to grasp)