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.

So much for being strong for my mum...got totally the door of the viewing room and couldn't go in.

Went away and gathered myself for a couple of minutes and tried again, lasted about 15 seconds...every fibre of my being was just screaming 'that's not my dad'.

Mum found it really comforting and is planning to go again.

Does anyone know what a reasonable timescale is for a medical certificate of death to produced? First signature was the nurse who was with him and it was sent to GP surgery on Monday but still hasn't been done.

I was under the impression a death is supposed to registered in 5 days. It limits how we we proceed and what other things can be sorted and frankly is just aggro we don't need.

Funeral is 3 weeks tomorrow

No wisdom to answer minty* but just thinking of you🌺

I'm happy to say that I've managed to forget the details of my husband's death, there was a post mortem so things were different anyway. The funeral director will know how long things are taking local to you - this is part of their expert knowledge that you are paying them for. Hopefully they will have told you to call them with any questions - this is a question that they can answer.

Had a call back from the GP surgery about 5 minutes after posting...apparently it has been done and was sent to the registrar yesterday so that's one less thing to worry about.

Your Dad sounds amazing, and the photo is lovely. Good luck with everything.

I was with my mum when she died in hospital Minty, she drifted off peacefully in her sleep, she didn't look any different and I did not see her again. Lots of people told me it's good to say a final goodbye and to accept it's real etc etc but I knew I didn't need that picture in my head for ever more and I've never regretted it.

No rules about wakes as far as I can gather. If wakes aren't mentioned, then the same rules would apply as to other indoor/outdoor gatherings. So do check with funeral director/venue

Throughout all this, the government hasn't regarded either wakes or wedding receptions as necessary.

Yep @MereDintofPandiculation that's basically it.

There's a pub with a function room we're going to get in touch with tomorrow.

Hope everyone is doing ok.minty thinking of you and your dd.

DF managed 2.5 weeks in his care home after the last hospital admission, so had just come out of self-isolation and could start having visitors, before ending up in hospital again today (chest pains). I presume that even if he is not admitted or only stays a day or two we will still be back to the start of the 2-week isolation again. Aargh.

Oh God ex what a nightmare!

How's everyone doing?

I can't believe how labour intensive organising a funeral is. Mum just isn't really engaging with any of it without vast amounts of gentle cajoling.

Still trying to find a venue for the wake, and she needs to decide on her flowers. I've got the Orders of Service laid out, have written my part of the service, and have started on the photo presentation.

She is spending most of her moping over Facebook or worrying about the kind of practicalities that can wait.

I guess it's a normal reaction but it just all feels so weird.

@MintyCedric I am so sorry for your loss :( I saw my mum in hospital after she passed and I remember her looking very peaceful but I never went to the funeral home to see either of my parents - I prefer to remember them as they were. I suppose its different for everyone. Be kind to yourself - this is early days xxxx

Sorry ex how’s he doing now?
minty thinking of you. Be kind to yourself.

Sorry to hear that ex, the timing is really bad there.

Minty I hope that the viewing is something that fades into history. I was very clear on my husband's very strong thoughts on that but they had to be filtered before I passed them to the funeral director.

I rang the hospital a couple of times a day every day last week, I was reaching the stage where I thought I would have to go in and ask when they were planning on taking the cast off mum's arm. I finally got through on the phone this morning and just as well. They had no plans for any follow up despite sending her home with a cast on her dominant arm. You would think that sort of thing just couldn't happen but it looks like it can.

knot that’s shocking. What if she didn’t have you to advocate?
Probably teaching you to suck eggs but dm had so much muscle wastage after breaking her ankle- we got a private physio to help which made a massive difference. Elderly79 friend did likewise and really helped restore movement and strength.

When my son had his leg in a cast when he was 7 we had a private physio afterwards, she was worth every penny. I've just had a call back from the social work team as a response from a crisis call three weeks ago. If it could have waited three weeks it wasn't really a crisis was it?

I really hope that social care is usually better than this because bits of it have been excellent and bits of it not fit for purpose.

DF is still in hospital, so at least it wasn't one of his regular in-A&E-overnight-and-out-in-the-morning things, which would be really galling if it meant he then spent another two weeks in isolation.

I think the main thing wrong with him at the moment is infection spreading from his diabetic ulcers (his feet and legs are in a pretty dreadful state at the moment), so he's been on IV antibiotics, but the vascular team monitoring his legs/feet long term haven't actually seen him yet. The Saturday of a bank holiday weekend is not a good time to be admitted to hospital, I suppose.

With every hospital admission, I wonder if this is the one he won't come out of (this is about the 7th in as many months, not including the overnight in A&E ones); a doctor told me he might not make it back out of hospital about five admissions ago, but this time even my father is starting to talk about it possibly being nearly the end of the road.

He hasn't got much appetite, peripheral circulation is poor, and has various other end-of-life sort of symptoms, but he has bounced back from so many near-death crises over nearly 20 years that I won't believe he is actually dying until I am sitting with him and hearing his breathing go into the final mode.

@Knotaknitter My nan has had no follow up after her arm break. She wore a soft cast for 6 weeks which we had to take off ourselves at home. It still doesnt look right tbh and is still giving her pain.

I don't suppose any of you ladies were in a car outside a vaccination centre yesterday? I was, with a friend, while husband had his second jab. My friend cared for both her parents for most of her adult life and is an amazing support to me. Anyway we were waiting for my husband and we overheard the woman in the car next to us having a conversation on the phone.

She was talking to her mother and getting increasingly stressed. It was the sort of conversation I have with mine on an almost daily basis about shopping and supplies. Along the lines of "I know you have 5 packets of ginger biscuits because I put them in the cupboard yesterday!" I didn't know whether to laugh or cry because it brought home to me the fact that there are so many of us in the same boat.

While we were in the car yesterday I mentioned to my friend that I really wished I could talk to a counsellor. I don't want to keep going over the same ground talking to my friends, even the ones who know what it's like. My friend phoned me last night and said she didn't feel comfortable mentioning it when we were in the car but she had previously been talking to another friend (who had also cared for elderly relatives for many years) and they had both felt I would benefit from counselling and they agreed between them that they would pay for it for me! What amazing friends!

No hairbrush not me…. But I am so glad you have such lovely friends. Please take them up on the offer.

Hairbrush that's lovely of your friends. I find myself bottling this stuff up because there is only so many times I can say this stuff to people.

I have a friend whose elderly mother was a master manipulator. She would phone her late at night to insist she was completely out of milk/bread etc, despite the fact she had a well stocked fridge/freezer. I went to visit one time - another thing she would try and do was befriend her friends to moan at them about how awful her daughter was, which didn't get very far with me - and she was saying she didn't have even a biscuit she could offer me as friend didn't provide her with such things. Friend proceeded to open the biscuit cupboard, which was of course heaving.

I am back from my four hour session involving the fracture clinic, I allowed an hour for driving fruitlessly around the car park which meant that I got a space immediately. That was one hour to kill and then a second hour when the 11am appointment was at 12. I had to tell them what she was there for as her notes didn't say, the cast on her arm that they put on six weeks ago should have been a clue. They've referred her for physiotherapy which was nice so I forgive them everything. I dropped mum at the door of the care home and she was wanting me to visit later. It was 1.30 and I'd done nothing except have a covid test and do mum-stuff but I was saved by the care assistant on door duty who suggested I probably have some jobs to do. Yes I do and the first one is drink tea and frolic on the internet.

I have a journal that listens to my endless whinging. It doesn't judge or suggest ways I could do things better and I don't have to worry about whether I am boring it. I needed to have a look back through the ones for 2016 and it was surprising how much rescuing mum needed even then.

I didn't get the time wrong on the appointment by the way, it was an hour late

@Knotaknitter how frustrating. It's bad enough when you are waiting on your own but at least then you can read or play on your phone but much harder when you have someone with you.

My friend is organising everything for me so I will turn up when she tells me to!