Cockroach Cafe - newly refurbished for the summer

[MereDintofPandiculation]

Welcome into our newly refurbished cafe. We've got rid of the Bad Daughters' bench - it was getting too small - and refitted the main room as a Bad Daughters' room, with comfy sofas, coffee, chocolates and drinks of your choice. (There is a good daughters' room - go down that corridor there and you'll find it tucked behind the stairs. It's not yet been fully furnished - we haven't had a visit from a Good Daughter in I don't know how long).

Anyway, come in when you want to share good news, or to rant, or to ask a small question that doesn't warrant its own thread. Or just to hang out with others who understand what you're going through.

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.

@IthinkIsawahairbrushbackthere

Tbh I may be getting up but that's about it at the moment...I'm still in my PJs and have done bugger all this morning.

I don't think the majority of people really understand the mental weight of dealing with this crap.

On the lighter side - Dad told me the Queen is getting a present of a peacock from Warwick Castle. He says “I think she’ll laugh when she sees it, it’s stone cold, she has to carve it herself” I love the mind that can imagine the Queen sitting down to get to grips with a do-it-yourself carved stone peacock kit.

It’s so much easier to appreciate my father now I'm not the one trying to care for him.

@MintyCedric Until you face the grinding reality of the phone calls and decision making that's required all day everyday on top of trying to live your own life you don't realise how much caring takes over.

I still get the anxious panic/stress sensations when I look at the tv guide and worry about what I can put on tv to keep her company! Sounds ridiculous in the grand scheme of things - how horrible am I to resent having to find something for my mum to watch on tv - but it was often the last straw at the end of a stressful day.

@MereDintofPandiculation I love your dad! What an amazing imagination

Did your dad mean a peacock for her maj to eat Dint?

@notaflyingmonkey

Did your dad mean a peacock for her maj to eat Dint?

I don't think so. I think he meant a fancy stone peacock. But it's always a possibility as it seems to be live rather than stone peacocks that Warwick Castle is noted for. However, when he's "confabulating" the end of the sentence rarely has much relevance to the beginning. So it could have been a live peacock (for show or to eat) at the beginning of the sentence, then his use of the phrase "stone cold' could have sent him on a different track.

Thanks @IthinkIsawahairbrushbackthere much appreciated. I’m doing ok, getting stronger, yet to visit dm. Dh has been a star, and takes no s£&# from her.
I’m glad your dm is settling a bit…… it must be so hard when she doesn’t acknowledge you. I hope you are taking some time for you now. You have don3 so much.
I love the stories of your dad, dint. Must be good to be a daughter not a carer.
Great news ton ton. Amazing what the right meds can do.
minty your dm leaves me speechless. Please try and protect yourself.

@TonTonMacoute - so glad things have taken a turn for the better

@MintyCedric - oh boy, you have your hands full. I’d say “not your circus, not your monkeys” regarding your mum, but I know that’s not how it works x

The removal company is coming to mums house tomorrow. I’ve spent 4 hours today trying to finalise prepping the stuff to be stored / removed (I’ve spent many many days before this prepping). DM had said she had written on the back of some pictures who they should go to. Ive found mine “bless you - I loved you dearly- thank you for such lovely grandchildren”

This should be lovely but why has it left me so upset? Maybe I’m angry that I’m having to deal with all of the physical remains of a life. Maybe I’m upset that there are so many unresolved family issues that all seem to land at my feet.

I’ve been try to post “Cockroach” but my phone keeps changing it to “Cocktail!” Maybe my phone has a point

@Toofaroutallmylife I don't know but it has left me tearful.

I am forcing myself to go to my mum's. It feels wrong to move things in there when she is not there.

@TonTonMacoute that's really good to read. Long may it continue.

@MintyCedric I don't know how you cope. It sounds like she needs distracting - are there any eligible chaps closer to her age?

@Toofaroutallmylife what a lovely message! MiL said similar to DH when she was dying about what a good son he was and how he had never given her a moment's trouble. DH has a brother who is severely mentally handicapped and BiL always came first with her, even above our DDs, so this final recognition was nice.

My DF is not too bad, still telling the same old, but still on it in many ways. However, I received a text from DH yesterday on my way home from work to say he had gone to the Minor Injuries Unit & was being sent by taxi to A&E with a badly swollen knee. I finally collected him at 8.45. His knee looks like it has a grapefruit stuck on it. It's not infected and when they took a sample, there was a lot of blood there. He is home, on crutches and wearing a knee brace and moaning like buggery. I so wish my DDs were home from uni to share the load...

Malbec my son is back from uni for a reading week and I am really glad to see him. This week I've had a day with six hours with mum at the hospital, I'd just managed to get my covid booster before I had the call from the care home. I got back home to start feeling a bit rough and then lost the next day to feeling hot/cold and weepy. I am going to pretend that this week has never happened.

I certainly haven't done anything on mum's house, like IthinkIsawahairbrush it feels wrong to be disposing of her things while she is still alive. If she died in the night then they would be mine and I'd have no issues chucking stuff in the bin but they are hers and I don't have enough distance yet to be happy doing it.

@Knotaknitter I hope you're feeling better soon and enjoy the week with your son.

One thing I'm very fortunate in is that my mum can't bear clutter...is it Swedish Death Cleaning that's a thing?

We've emptied what relatively little was in the loft since Dad died, and that and most of his stuff is stacked in the garage waiting to be donated/tipped. I've retrieved his art materials, a few DVDs and books and one of his rugby shirts.

Mum's taste is the polar opposite mine - she's very neutral and I'm a fan of bold colours, so when the time does come that side of things will be straightforward at least.

Took her to sign her new will today,and we had a reasonable morning. She's found a social group she's possibly interested in joining, and I mentioned that I'd been avoiding a few things as they're on the night I stay over and she was supportive of me changing that as necessary (she used to throw a purple fit if I suggested changing an arrangement).

Who knows how long it'll last but it makes a nice change. I think we need to get out more when we're together...it seems to take the edge off.

Yes, agree with knot (in-fact it might have been me who said it) it doesn’t seem to be right to dispose of stuff when Dad’s alive. I’m going to clear the garage and get rid of the car. Sort through his papers, make them take up less space, throw any complete rubbish (his “working clothes” which the nursing home certainly wouldn’t let him wear). But that’s about it.

MrsR back in da house for a bijou rant-ette....

So DM is pissed again (NO!!! really???) I spoke to her yesterday and she was all right-ish, in a drunk sort of way. This morning Himself gets a phone call from the paramedics saying that she's lying in bed and she's soiled herself and will he go round and clean her up.
He says, not a hope. Well, they say, would her daughter not do it, pressure on the ambulance services, and meh.

The reason DM is drinking is that she's being referred for blood test after blood test but with no idea why or what they're looking for. She's being bombarded with medical appointments but doesn't know what they're for (I've seen the letters, she's not wrong.) They've told her she's got a heart problem but not what it is.I'm not surprised she's frightened and confused.

Either she is medically vulnerable, in which case if she's immobile and incontinent they have a duty of care to check her over, or she isn't, in which case them's the breaks when you drink a bottle of whisky a day. Either way, it's not "relieving the pressure on the NHS" to get unqualified civilians to come in and sort out her, literal, shit.

He told them (politely) no, I might add. So here we are being thankless children again and I'm here for that...

Sounds extremely shit @MrsRussell

Unspeakably awful here, dm hit a nurse with her zimmer frame yesterday as she's constantly trying to leave and being stopped. Also ringing the only number she can remember which is her sister's, who has dementia. And this is the easy bit while she's in hospital...

In the meantime, a private sector firm have informed me it will take them over 2 weeks to look at the lasting power of attorney form, never mind send it back. God knows how I am supposed to pay for Mum's care if every firm has the same timescale. We have been in hourly expectation if a nursing home place for over a week now.

Bloody hell @PermanentTemporary that sounds hard.

At least mine's only a biohazard! (This is what gives me the rage - if someone shit themselves in my workplace, it would be declared a H&S incident and we would call in professional cleaners, full-on hazardous material job. Obviously because we're just "family" there's some magic thing whereby her bodily fluids aren't going to be as hazardous to me or my husband....)

Oh blimey @PermanentTemporary and @MrsRussell.

I really hope the week pans out more smoothly for you both than it's started.

Not much to report here, so I feel a bit of a fraud. Last two visits to mum were a bit more positive. I'm just trying to juggle a full time (online) business startup course this week, with seeing her on the usual schedule.

Unfortnately her friends that often visit on Tuesday, thus buying me an extra day at home, are away this week, but if that's all I've got to complain about, I'll take it!

Chocolate and drinks for all who need them, @PermanentTemporary and @MrsRussell being first in the line. Poop in carpet was the point where I said that something had to be done and that I wasn't prepared to hold up the house of cards any more for the inlaws.

So far I've only had to part with the PoA once, the pension people promised they would send it straight back - it was gone just over two weeks. I've had two strange letters regarding attendance allowance this week, they can only have been triggered by a letter I sent about mum's change in circumstance some three months ago. It's taken three months to get a response and they now want me to send them the LPA? With a response time like that they can dream on. There's an option to take it into a JobCentre Plus and have them copy it and say they saw the original and that's the option I'll be going with. No way am I parting with it unless there is no other choice.

It's been a rough week, mum moved into nursing care today. I need to go shopping to replace all the things that were missing from her suitcase, I suppose there might be things still in the wash in the previous home but that doesn't include her slippers, washbag and glasses.

Goodness @Knotaknitter where does this stuff go?? Dm lost a nice jumper at the last nursing home,.she was there about 48 hours

Well, when DM was first hospitalised (old-school locked ward, back in the 80s) her stuff was being nicked by other patients, if it was nice.
I imagine she's had her own back since, but I am feeling grumpy and cynical since I've had four calls at work from her GP wanting me to come home and sort her bedding out.
Errrrr..... no. Still no. No for the third and fourth time.

Knota if you can afford to, order one or two extra pairs glasses and ask they mark her name on the frame. Always multiple glasses snatchers in every home we’ve ever been @PermanentTemporary @MrsRussell hang on in there. It has to get v dark and difficult before it gets better. My six stone DM slapped a junior doctor according to a nurse. Now all she does is kiss people and hold their hands.

Oh @MrsRussell and @PermanentTemporary you are really going through it. Chocolate and gin to you.
@Knotaknitter that’s rubbish re glasses and other stuff. When dm was in respite she never forgave me that her smelling salts went missing……. Now an illegal substance😮.
Still keeping a low profile here as I recover from op. Doing well but need to nap!!!

etc to all those who need them. It sounds like a lot of you do...

I've been absent from the cafe for so long that I dropped off the thread. The big development here is that DM has been offered a sheltered flat in the lovely complex I have had in mind for her for ages. She doesn't want to move but accepts that she needs to. Luckily in a way the flat won't be ready until after Christmas so she will have one last Christmas in the family house, and with any luck it might be more 'normal' than last year, despite the absence of DF.

This means we can now get on with the decluttering and house-clearing process, as once she has moved out and I have finished dealing with DF's probate, the house and most of the contents will need to be sold.

@permanenttemporary Have you tried offering to send people a PDF of the LPA? I have never actually had to send a physical copy of ours, even when I was arranging to have access to DF's bank account, it was all done by email with scans.

The first time I had to do it I just took pics of all the pages on my phone, which worked but wasn't great quality, so next time I scanned the LPAs at home, then combined all the scan jpegs into one document and turned it into a medium-resolution PDF so it is not too big a file to attach to an email; I now have DM's LPA saved on my laptop and my phone so I can easily send it out to anyone who needs it.

The other option if anyone insists on a physical copy of the LPA might be to get certified copies done by a solicitor or accountant, so you have multiple ones to send out? You'd have to pay but it might be worth it.

If the owner of the LPA is of sound mind they can certify a copy themselves - you can buy a stamp with the wording for each page. We left it too late unfortunately.