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.

Hello mrsRussell please stay! You’ve evidently walked past the bad daughter bench which dominates the cafe which is HEAVING with those of us who struggle with our dp’s and try and have some sort of life…… and battle resentment, guilt and all other sorts of unsaintly thoughts…… there’s room for you too!
Your dm sounds incredibly difficult. 🌺🌺

Surely, but you all stick at it. Whereas the only way I can have any kind of relationship with her is to walk out and shut the door behind me and leave her to it.

I've turned the phone off so that when I get the inevitable call from the ambulance services this weekend that she's fallen, or she's vomiting blood, or that I'm apparently dead in her back bedroom, I won't be dealing with it.

In your situation I would do the same as you- probably would have done it sooner,

I think we need some sort of terraced seating because the bad daughter bench is full again. The solution to all mum's troubles would have been me moving back home and I'm not doing it. I'm not doing single handed 24 hour care because I'd quite like to have a life of my own rather than it being totally controlled by mum's needs. I love her dearly but I just couldn't.

MrsRussell You can't help someone who won't be helped. That's all there is to it. If there's someone determined to go to hell in a handcart there isn't a deal you can do about it. I think in your shoes I'd be turning the phone off too and researching jobs at the other end of the country. Does it come with a side order of "you made me do it" and "this is all your fault"?

The reality is, the more we do, the more we are expected to do. Until we run ourselves ragged.

Asking for a referral for her to the continence nurse gets me top seat on the bad daughter bench I reckon. She thrusts the letter at anyone and everyone who comes to the house. I live in hope that she is so angry she stops shitting everywhere.

Heh! The shitting seems to be a constant doesn't it? Mine's had a letter from her cleaning company saying that is absolutely not the poor cleaner's job to clean up poo, and if she does it again they will terminate the contract. And this, get this one, this is THE CLEANER'S FAULT for going back to the office and telling them.
The thing that's making me furious at the moment is that this is her grandson's last year in primary school. He's doing SATs, he's doing his end of year show in which he has the lead role, he's doing all his secondary school inductions, he's doing summer camps with Scouts and it's all a bit weird because of Covid, so it's all doubly significant to a 10 year old. And she's chosen right now to act up.

This is how I suspect the game will play out over the next few days. She'll refuse to answer the phone, with the intention that I should go running round to check up on her. (I won't. She has a Lifeline, and neighbours.) By the time she's back in hospital - surprised it wasn't last night, but I give it till Tuesday - "I hadn't had a drink since Friday" and "I would have died if "THEY" hadn't found me" and "I've been neglecting myself, THEY say I will have to go into a home".

It's all very passive-aggressive and spiteful and I CBA with it. To begrudge attention to a 10 year old is just..... oof.

Meh, continence nurse. That was so spring 2020. I saw the letter, made a note of the date but as it was going to be on mum's birthday I said I wouldn't be there. Did the nurse come? Was she sent away at the door? Who knows. The referral was made by the hospital after a fall, it wasn't something MIL thought she needed. I have asked about it several times in the last 16 months but am met with a brick wall every time. If there is no incontinence then I don't have to clean it off the floor then or bring pads in with the shopping.

MrsRussell I find "ok" gets overtime as my response. I am done engaging with the attention seeking madness, refusal to engage with services, refusal to act in their own best interests. I've tried and I am now officially done trying. What I am not doing is supporting the unsafe living situation, if she chooses to live in a silly house in a silly place then that's her choice but I'm not running around dealing with the results of her choices. Can't get a bus? Dear, dear, here's the number for the taxi/community transport and maybe consider moving somewhere with access to transport.

Knot your mum sounds so similar to mine it's uncanny...I have no idea how you cope with both her and MIL that needs attention.

MrsR don't feel bad...I've turned off my mobile and unplugged the house phone before now. And when mum starts one of her self-pitying/emotional blackmailing/obsessing about the carer rants these days I general make one attempt to steer the convo in a different direction, and if that fails I leave.

I called her when we got home yesterday and she was okay, but she was very down and tearful at gone 10pm last night. I blanked the voice in my head saying 'you must rush round there immediately' and did my best over the phone, then went back to me gin and Netflix.

Have had a long chat with her best mate this morning...we're so lucky that both our closest friends are absolute legends.

DF died yesterday morning, after a couple of days of gradually fading away on palliative care. It was a relief all round, to be honest - after withstanding at least twenty years of disability and serious health problems, the last six months were horrible even by those standards, and he had definitely had enough of hospitals and pain and indignity and not being able to go home.

I now have all the funeral planning and probate bureaucracy to deal with, but I can cope with that. More of a worry is almost equally frail and disabled DM, alone in a huge and unsuitable house, already prone to falls even without the almost a bottle of wine a night she seems to be drinking at the moment, judging by the speed at which her recycling bin fills up. I am hoping that within a few months I can persuade her into some kind of sheltered flat, but now is probably not the moment.

Knot I imagine the Bad Daughters' Bench like the tiered rows of seats spreading out to infinity in the heaven scenes in A Matter of Life and Death. I am very glad you are stepping back and taking some of your life back.

Hairbrush the situation you are in is unsustainable, as others have said you (and other people on your behalf) have to imprint this on the health and care agencies - they have the statutory duty of care and cannot force that duty on you against what you are willing and able to do. That you are stressed enough to have experienced amnesia is serious and I would be getting my own GP etc on side asap.

Mrs R - I have had alcohol addiction in my past and have been alcohol-free for many years - I know from experience that alcoholics can very much make choices, regardless of whether it feels like a choice. We make them all the time and sometimes we make a choice not to stop drinking. You have no obligation to cope with that decision on her behalf. Your life is important, it does not come second to hers.

Minty I hope you are feeling OK, well done for blanking that voice.

I have had a bit of a whirlwind of going up and down the country. The short version is that all the efforts to put posh carer agency in place for DM were soon overtaken by it being clear that she wasn't coping, even with 4 visits a day, due to her physical disability and - frankly - her cognitive decline. So she is now in a posh care home, officially for a fixed period but it needs to be permanent. I am wrestling with her banks / building societies despite having full PoA I have been put through hoops and needless delays. I won't support any professional who attempts to send her home, given how she was in her last couple of weeks there but I don't think that will arise, and one magic is that she is self-funding, which removes some obstacles as in all unequal systems. In a few weeks I may have to make some decisions about whether she ought to come to a home near me, one big problem with that being that I only temporarily live here and will be leaving for good in just over 2 years. Hmm.

@BinaryDot then you have my utmost respect, because I know how hard she has found it - and even at so much cost, with DM it's STILL every other bugger's fault. And yes, absolutely it is my life and she has no right to it, but very specifically she has no right to demand to play out the same scenarios that saw me a neglected and to a degree abused, child, with my son. As they say in Norfolk, her can bugger off with that.

@exexpat sorry for your loss. Take care of yourself x

@exepat I am sorry 🌺🌺

Sorry for your loss expat

I've turned the phone off so that when I get the inevitable call from the ambulance services this weekend that she's fallen, or she's vomiting blood, or that I'm apparently dead in her back bedroom, I won't be dealing with it. Excellent! We go blue in the face trying to persuade those who are struggling to do exactly that!

@exexpat sorry for your loss.

@BinaryDot I have found it very useful that Dad is only a 5min drive (or a 2 mile walk) from us. Before Covid, I was visiting every 3 days (although I'm not sure whether I'll go back to that) and that wouldn't have happened if I'd had a drive of an hour each way. However, it was pure chance that landed him there - the only place that had a vacancy on the afternoon that the OT was trying to find him a placement.

Do you know where you'll be moving to? The average stay in a care home is supposedly around 3 years, and around 18 months in a nursing home (although some people can be there a lot longer). Have you any idea how long your mother may be there? And if she settles there, then would you dare risk a disruption?

Exexpat I am sorry that the end has come for your dad. I hope that you have many happy memories to sustain you and that you forget quickly about the grim bits.

BinaryDot I'm in the same position with mum, self funding and officially there until she recovers enough to go home but that's not going to happen. I don't believe she has the capacity to take a decision on her care but I'm hoping that it won't come to that. At the moment she seems to think that she works there and if she's happy with that then it works for me. I am in the fortunate position of having a joint bank account with mum so haven't had to wave the LPA yet. That was something she did years ago, we were in the bank for something else and she did her little old lady impression (think Joan Hickson as Miss Marple) and created a joint account without an appointment or me having anything like id.

I know I said I wouldn't but I had to share this somewhere - I saw the bloody woman on Friday, pissed as a fart, I said we had plans for the weekend - food festival on Saturday and a steam rally today.
And so today - while the phone was set to Do Not Disturb, thank God - she has left SEVEN messages.
Tomorrow I shall delete the whole boiling lot unheard but WTAF??? And it'll all be whiny "I'm panicking now, I need you to ring me back" crap even though she knows we were going out for the day,, which is exactly why I'm not going to listen to them till tomorrow.

She moans when her neighbour does it to her, mind you, and says it's stalking.

Hugs to you all so sorry for your loss expat.

I know it’s trivial but I’m so pissed off, my dc been asked to help my parents as I’m away for the weekend, but siblings dc are in the same town, also visited today but not asked to help as they have busy lives, whereas my visiting DC obviously doesn’t. Why oh why am I, and DC seen as the help?

PS, my DC not complaining but it just seems it is always my side that at expected to do so.

Baroness It's because yours are seen as safe and reliable? I am seen as capable of anything whereas The Family are delicate flowers. Once I was just on my way out of the door - could I change the sheets? Her brother and SIL had been the day before and her daughter was due the next day so I suggested that dear daughter could do it. MIL was shocked that I would suggest it, would daughter be able to manage it? I had to point out that daughter was in possession of a double bed of her own and had been changing the sheets on that for the last thirty years. I don't know whether I'm the char woman and the others are upstairs servants but there are certain jobs that are definitely mine. They are there for tea and sympathy and I'm there to work. No tea for me.

MrsRussell I'm loving mum not having access to a phone. I'd go out and have 11 messages on the landline and I'd have to listen to them in case one of them was not mum. In the last two weeks I've had one call on it, I'm now considering ditching it all together.

@exexpat I'm so sorry for your loss...do take care of yourself...it's a very surreal and exhausting time

At the moment she seems to think that she works there and if she's happy with that then it works for me.

@Knotaknitter my dad was the opposite...he went through phases when he was at home when he though he was in the care home and that mum and I were the nurse/cook!

@BinaryDot that must be so frustrating...could you get a cheap 'burner phone' and give that number to your mum?

Alas mine is au fait with social media, so I tend to get a lengthy diatribe on FB Messenger when I 'abandon' her for the day .

Hi knot, I can identify with that. It made me smile as that is exactly how it works!

DM helpfully suggests to me that I get my DCs to do some of the tasks she sets, anything to avoid her getting my DB to do anything, given that 'he works' (as do I, btw).

Bloody hell I'm lucky I'm an only child - at least I don't have THAT power dynamic to add into the mix!
Just a 50 year old woman who's supposed to ring mummy and let her know she's home safe every time she goes out. Think mummy can do one, actually, but am waiting for the hysterical "oh thank God you're safe" conversation later.
Yup, I was not burned to death in some freak exploding-engine accident, mowed down by a runaway little grey Fergie, or abducted by aliens, ten miles away from my house.