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.

The ambulance came and they actually had to drag her from the bathroom and lift her to perch on the bed. I washed her as well as I could but ran out of flannels and ended up scrubbing her with jcloths.

The paramedics didn't think she needed to be admitted but put in a report to the GP to say that she could not continue living in the caravan.

After they left I cleaned the bathroom floor and it took my daughter and me a good 45 minute to get her to the toilet and back. The carer came and washed her and scrubbed the bathroom, even though I said that I was going to do it. She was with us way over her allotted time and was amazing. Before she left she and my daughter took mum toilet again and by the time she was back in bed she was asking for the toilet again.

I spoke to the GP and she told me to phone the ambulance again and insist that she was admitted to be assessed by geriatrics. So she has gone off in the ambulance.

I honestly don't know if she will come home. I can not meet her care needs at the moment. She needs two people to get to the toilet and even then it takes 40 minutes.

I have to phone A&E around 5 o'clock. My biggest fear is that they will say that she has to come home tonight.

Hairbrush If the paramedics have flagged up that she's in an unsuitable living situation then I would have thought that it was unlikely that the hospital would discharge her back there. I think you will get a night off caring, if not off worrying.

I'm so sorry that things aren't more straightforward.

At least it sounds like your GP is on the ball and that hopefully this will be the first step to you getting a lot more support.

Keeping my fingers crossed for reassuring news at 5pm, whatever form that takes, and do try and take care of yourself tonight if you can, even if just in small ways.

I have phoned the hospital and spoken to her on the phone. She tells me she is fine and I can hear the brittleness in her voice. She doesn't know why she's in hospital - as far as she is concerned she is no worse than she has been at any time in the past year or so.

I don't understand how it works - they took her because the GP said so but they only have my word for that? They don't think she has had a stroke, I can't get hold of a commode and there is no room for two people to take her to the toilet.

I have no idea what will happen.

hairbrush you have been coping so long- can you contact hospital discharge sw? Make clear what you cannot do. Insist she has an ot assessment. Make sure hosp understand living circs.
Useful phrase- unsafe discharge, will need readmitting.

Hairbrush as things develop one's personal definition of "normal" starts to drift from what it used to be and what it would look like to an outsider. Your mum may be right, she may be no worse now than on other occasions in the past year but that doesn't means that those other occasions were in any way acceptable. Being on the floor, unable to get up is itself not normal even without the diarrhoea. As things change over time you find yourself in a situation that you would never have accepted at the outset, it just creeps up on you little by little.

Based on what happens with MIL (the frequent faller) they will monitor her blood pressure, blood sugar, check for infection, stick a heart monitor on and try to work out what it was that caused the fall. She's frequently in for a week after a fall as they look for possible causes to rule out (I could save the NHS a bucket of money by pointing out that she eats properly while in hospital and lives on biscuits at home, the patient they are looking at isn't the same person she will be a week after release)

I usually suggest to the A&E people that the answer is probably a urine infection when DM falls. They usually ignore me, do all the tests, then tell me it's a urine infection.

Meals on Wheels phoned me today (I was actually at work rather than WFH) to tell me when they got to DM's house she had a step ladder out to fetch something down from the top of a cabinet. Fuck knows what I was supposed to do with that voicemail. So next on the to do list is go and hide her step ladder.

@IthinkIsawahairbrushbackthere

I have phoned the hospital and spoken to her on the phone. She tells me she is fine and I can hear the brittleness in her voice. She doesn't know why she's in hospital - as far as she is concerned she is no worse than she has been at any time in the past year or so.

I don't understand how it works - they took her because the GP said so but they only have my word for that? They don't think she has had a stroke, I can't get hold of a commode and there is no room for two people to take her to the toilet.

I have no idea what will happen.

What would be the best outcome as far as you are concerned, hairbrush?

The good thing about an elderly person being taken to hospital after a fall is that they should not release her again without an occupational therapist/physio assessment of what she is capable of doing, a check of the home circumstances, and a care package in place. They should talk to you as part of that, and you need to be really, really honest about what she is like on her worst days.

It sounds to me like she is long overdue for a move to a care home, but I presume she will tell them that she can manage perfectly well by herself (ie with you at her beck and call) - you need to make sure they realise quite how much support you are giving her, and how her needs are now moving beyond what one person can do.

My father has been back in hospital for ten days or so, and is now officially in end-of-life care, so it looks like I needn't have worried about him going back into self-isolation at the nursing home: he won't be going back there.

The good thing about him being officially end-of-life in hospital is that they relax all the visiting rules, so rather than just one designated visitor (which was me) I can now also take my mother in, and her housekeeper/carer can also take her in separately.

Sounds like you are also going through difficult times Expat we are here if needed.

When DM was discharged after her stroke (so I know it's not exactly the same) Hairbrush the OT people came to her house to see what aids she would need, and they then provided a commode, perch stool, etc

Expat I am sorry to hear that, I'm glad that he's not spending his final days in solitary though. I think he'll get all the good drugs to make him comfortable as they aren't worried about addiction or long term side effects.

I'm thinking of all of you who have hit a rough patch in the road at the moment. We'll get through this, one foot in front of the other until we are out the other side.

So next on the to do list is go and hide her step ladder. That thought struck me the other day - the time is approaching when people will twitch about me being on a stepladder, and I'll have to rearrange all my cupboards so the lower ones contain everything I will conceivably need for the next 20 years.

Actually, considering all of Dad's falls, the one place he never fell from was off the stepladder (which he was still using in his 90s).

you need to make sure they realise quite how much support you are giving her, and how her needs are now moving beyond what one person can do. You also need to realise how much support you are giving her - all the little things that you have got used to and no longer consider. It's so easy to lose sight of "normal" and not realise just how much you are doing.

expat thinking of you.🌺

@exexpat

Hope things are a bit better for you now?

The good thing about an elderly person being taken to hospital after a fall is that they should not release her again without an occupational therapist/physio assessment of what she is capable of doing, a check of the home circumstances, and a care package in place. They should talk to you as part of that, and you need to be really, really honest about what she is like on her worst days.

It doesn't look as though they are going to check over the caravan before she comes home because it is dry and leak proof, has running water and heating and is basically sound. However they have said that she will come home with a care package of four visits a day and we have said that we will no longer provide personal care of any sort.

To add to the mix: I ended up in A&E yesterday with stress induced amnesia. I started the day with a headache (I can remember that) then my husband appeared in the middle of the day because I had made strange calls to him at work. I remember nothing other than waving my mum goodbye and him walking through the door twenty four hours later.

I sat in A&E for six and a half hours to be told that it was stress induced and I should go home and rest. The strangest thing was that I thought my phone was playing up, I could not believe that I had sat there for so long. It felt like 30 minutes - maybe an hour at the most.

Today I am home and with the help of my daughter I am getting through all the washing that I didn't do yesterday because my brain was fried.

Oh hairbrush you poor thing! Please take on board all the medical advice and DO NOT go back on what you have said.
🌺🌺🌺🌺

Hairbrush, DH lost an hour of his life in a similar way, about 20 years ago. No I’ll effects since. So take the advice, have a well deserved rest, and don’t worry.

Hairbrush If you ever need a reminder of why you need to step back and take some time for yourself, this is it.

Hairbrush your body is telling you something - you need to listen to it

My garden is seeing the benefits of me having given up the care gig. I hadn't realised how much I'd stopped doing in my own life while I was busy running mum's life. I still feel guilty and yet she's having her hair washed (she wouldn't do that for me), going in the bath (impossible for years) and she doesn't look like she lives in a cardboard box because when I packed her suitcase I made sure that her "working clothes" didn't go with her. I'm sleeping, I have time for walking, I'm not on the crisps and wine diet and I have time in the day to do things that make me happy.

Am I going to use this free time to take on the care of my MIL, the one that won't acknowledge her hearing loss or memory loss, the one that refuses to make any changes that would make her life easier, the one that I've not got on with for thirty years? No, I risked my health for someone who loves me and appreciated me but I'm certainly not doing it for someone who dishes out orders.

knot that is so good to hear.
Hang on to that. So glad your dm is accepting help.

That sounds like a good outcome all round Knot. Enjoy the garden.

Glad you're having a better time knot.

How are you feeling today hairbrush?

I've spent the morning in our nearest city clothes shopping with DD which has been lovely. Just having a quick trip round Sainsbos while she's at the gym then home for a cuppa and a scone.

Mum called first thing as she's remembered we were out today (nearest city is 12 miles away ) and was not happy that I wouldn't be round the corner.

I pointed out that I can't be expected to love under house arrest for the foreseeable future.

She replied, "And I can't..." then tailed off. Not quite sure what point she was about to try and make...

live under house arrest

Hello all, sorry to see some of the same names struggling in the same ways (I used to be Cattermole, but I lost my login!) and I take my hat off to all of you. Please take care of your precious and valuable selves, there is only one of you and it needs to be cared for too.

I stopped by for a bijou rant-ette about my DM - who is a selfish, manipulative drunk, and who is drinking herself to death and hoping to make me responsible for it because I'm "cold" apparently that she can't come and live with me - and that was a tiny, tiny percentage of it but I am so very humbled and saddened by the care and love you have for your parents that I shall just let th door hit me in the arse on the way out.

Keep on keeping on, you have my uttermost respect.