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.

🍷🍷dancing. Could she cope with frozen ready meals?
Wiltshire farm foods deliver, or parsley box although dm prefers m and s which ocado deliver.
Hope everyone else is ok

We've had quite a good day. Mum has had a fantastic day out, she's called four times this afternoon to thank me and rave about what a great time she had. My entry for daughter of the year is that I needed to return some clothes and I took her with me to Matalan.

It remains to be seen whether she'll remember it tomorrow or be stuck on the narrative of "I never leave the house".

Mum and MIL have Parsleybox occasionally, the advantage being that they have a very long shelf life and don't take space in the freezer.

I'll look into Parsleybox as she only has a tiny freezer. She always reminds me that her freezer was much bigger before we made her move house.... Sometimes I wonder whether she is in denial about how old she actually is. She still expects to be able to walk into town every other day and feel fine afterwards - At 95 I think it is pretty good going to be able to walk anywhere so would expect some aches and pains!

@Nodancingshoes At 90, my father complained someone had offered him a seat on the bus “I don’t like being offered a seat by someone who looks older than I feel “

Mum keeps telling me that she fancies Wiltshire Farm Foods or Parsley Box. Her freezer is just about big enough for the ice cream she likes to have although she rarely eats it!

Plus she can't cook. I do all her meals and if for any reason we are not eating together (DH is at work or whatever) I get her a ready meal from Tesco. But she thinks it would make her life easier if she had a stock of ready meals!

Oh God!

We have just arrived at the home, mum having printed out chapter and verse from t'internet about how patients in 'end of life' (specifically last 12 months) should have visitors more frequently than we are currently be allowed to attend.

Preparing for WW3.5

I cook mum's lunch but if for some reason I suddenly couldn't get there then I can't see a carer rummaging in the freezer and whipping up lamb chops, jacket potatoes and broad beans. There's a box of ready meals in the pantry that just need sticking in the microwave for two minutes, no fuss, no bother.

Oh and she's going to ask dad if he wants to come home...

Good luck with that one Minty. I think it will fall down because of the lack of a formal diagnosis but you've got to admire her preparation.

I currently have MIL in one hospital and mum in another (she went off in an ambulance this morning, still waiting to here if they are keeping her after her CSI reinactment, I found her stretched out in a pool of blood. I suspect concussion). In my innocence I thought both hospitals might have the same visiting rules but no they don't. MIL can have one visitor for an hour a day, same visitor all the time, prebooked. Mum is in the more restrictive place, no visitors except for end of life or people with dementia or learning difficulties.

Oh good Lord Knot you poor thing. I guess your mum had a fall?

Hope they will both be ok @knotaknitter xx

She's been pulling weeds, fallen somehow and smacked the side of her head hard onto concrete. Her face was a mess, she might have damaged a rib but her arms were ok so at least she hasn't broken a wrist trying to save herself. I packed her an overnight Tesco carrier bag just in case, I'm guessing at concussion, possibly with added fractures of rib and cheekbone. There are many ways that it could be worse but I'm trying to not consider those.

At the moment I'm fine, the worry will start when she comes home. MIL is fit but not yet discharged, if she's going to wave her hand in the air and declare that "my daughter in law will do that" then she's in for a shock.

Oh crikey knot sounds really tough.🌺🌺hope they are both ok. Make sure discharge coordinator is clear what Dil will and won’t do.....
minty good luck....

I hope they're both okay and don't end up being too tricky for you to manage @Knotaknitter.

Apparently Dad would prefer to be at home but mum is not so sure.

In other news, she has signed up to an online dating site for widows and widowers...apparently she had about fifteen likes within about an hour, mostly from blokes 10-15 years her junior

@Knotaknitter I hope your mum is ok.

Went to see my mum today & she told me she'd fallen in her bedroom on Tuesday, couldn't get up & had called for DSis for 20 minutes for help but no one heard her & in the end she had to get herself up. But, I'm not to tell my sister because then she'll be taken to hospital.

I told her I was going to get her some kind of call alarm that would sound in the kitchen (mum lives with my sis & the house is very big). But I'm not allowed to get her an alarm because if "they" know she's fallen then she'll be taken into hospital. She doesn't seem to recognise that DSis either has to know so she can help DM get up off the floor; or else DSis can not know she's fallen, in which case stop complaining that no one came to help you up.

How scary to find your mum like that :@Knotaknitter. I hope she's ok and makes a swift recovery.

@Ieatmarmite we have an alarm supplied for free by the council. Mum wears it on her wrist and if she were to fall suddenly it will sound even if she doesn't press it. But also if she slides off the bed she can press it and the alarm will sound. It's not like the ones that go through to a call centre, much less formal.

IthinkIsawahairbrushbackthere - that sounds just like the kind of thing my mum needs.

As soon as I got to my sister's this afternoon DM told me I had to book an appointment for her for an ultrasound because she'd had a letter telling her to phone for an appointment and if I didn't do it straight away she would be "thrown off the GP list". No "Hello" or "How are you" etc, just straight to the "you must..." My nephew and my DSis had both offered to phone for the appointment this morning, but for some reason it had to be me.

She cried when I said I wasn't staying for dinner She cried when I said I would see her again on Monday because "that's 3 whole days away"; she cried when I was about to leave. I'd already texted DH and told him I'd be later home that I said because I felt sorry for her and stayed a bit longer with her. Then as I put my jacket on she asked me to do a favour and get her box of tablets (a ginormous plastic box containing all her pills). Of course she couldn't remember which one she was meant to be taking and went through everyone asking me if that was the right one. Normally she needs no help at all. She had taken all the labels off the boxes in case someone finds the box and then uses the label to steal her identity. She lost her temper with me because I couldn't tell her which tablet she needed to take. Went to ask my sister about which was right tablet and when I came back she was even more bad tempered. So much so that she told me to take her dog out "before she kicked him to death". I try to smile sweetly throughout but that's hard when someone is being rude and bad tempered for no reason at all.

@Ieatmarmite

Oh Lord it sounds so familiar.

The inevitable 'can you just...' every bloody time you try to leave...

I can't believe how alike all our mothers are! I have the "Can you just''' thing at least once a day. This afternoon she rang me three times in half an hour and the last time she actually said "Can you come and see me? I'm lonely." So I went!

Omg! My mum phoned me to complain she was bored and lonely at 10, even though she knew I was going roundjust after lunch and staying over tonight!

I am an introvert...I just cannot even begin to comprehend such a high need for company. I could cheerfully spend a week on my own without batting an eyelid.

I've also noticed mum is much less whiny when I'm not seeing her if I'm doing things she approves of.

DIY, housework, gardening all acceptable.

'Me' time, writing, not so much.

Seeing friends...however dare I ?

I flat out lie when asked what I'm doing because if it's anything even slightly interesting she is sad because she's not doing it with me. I find that saying I was cleaning the bathroom kills the line of questioning stone dead.

The hospital kept mum in for reasons they wouldn't tell me over the phone which I found funny given the restrictions on visiting. She was walking about and taking herself to the toilet so my fear of bleeding on the brain due to blood thinners is probably unfounded.

When I was growing up I was expected to entertain myself. The inevitable line was "only boring people get bored". As yet I've not had to trot that one out but the day we went to the library was noticeable for the lack of phone calls. If she has something to occupy herself with then she doesn't call me for a chat. My struggle at the moment is finding things for her to do. She's had 19 years of living alone and I have no idea how she filled the day when I wasn't there because obviously, I wasn't there.

hairbrush Parsleybox doesn't need a freezer. So you could get her in a few to keep her happy, and if they weren't being used, you could always do her one when for any reason you weren't cooking for the family.

@thesandwich

Oh crikey knot sounds really tough.🌺🌺hope they are both ok. Make sure discharge coordinator is clear what Dil will and won’t do..... minty good luck....

... and remember the discharge coordinator’s job is to free up beds. So be as firm as you like.