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.

Just read that thread Minty I don't think you came across as losing your rag. Unfortunately it is one of those MN situations where people can be glib without actually understanding or empathising. It's why I don't really try and engage on those sorts of threads.

I'm sure any random strangers seeing me with mum atm think I'm an unfeeling bitch...they see elderly person and unless theyve been through it they just think 'awww poor sweet old lady...isn't her daughter a cow getting frustrated with her'

I think people have to walk a mile in our shoes before they have the right to judge us.

Also - it is a filter through which generations of conditioning is passed. My DB is never judged by anyone for only bowling up on occasion and not really contributing towards lessening the long list of tasks. That's daughter's duties.

Most people wouldn't manage more than a couple of hundred yards before reality hit them, let alone a mile.

My dad phoned at 10:30pm last night. He goes to bed around 8:30pm so he'd been asleep a couple of hours. Very confused and had been hallucinating about me being in the house but a younger me. Managed to calm him down and told him to go back to bed. Anyone got experiences of hallucinations and what causes them?
He's also been hearing singing for about a year but after I recorded the general noise on my phone and played it back to him, he realised it was only him that could hear the singing so he's not mentioned it again although I know he hears it.

@MintyCedric Don't worry about what anyone else thinks. I've been the unfeeling daughter bitch at the hospital as well. I expect the staff have forgotten me now. They only see a snapshot and not the whole picture.

As always, answers fall in two camps, those who are living through it and understand only too well and those who think they know what it would be like.

MIL doesn't want the responsibility of choosing something for the house. If someone else does it for her then they are the point of contact forever. TV not working? Ring up and complain that "that tv you bought for me" isn't working, don't take the five seconds to see if you unplugged it when vacuuming. I declined to assist in the choosing of a new freezer, new tv, new curtains, new vaccuum - I said I'd take her to the shop, wait while she chose it and carry it in and install it but I wasn't choosing it or providing an aftercare service because it's not mine. If it didn't have the features she wanted/was the wrong shade of pink/needed the batteries changing that would be nothing to do with me. She didn't make her own choices, she switched to another family member and the aftercare is now their problem.

Spababe I've been through it with mum. I think hers were memories, she couldn't place them as being in the past (dementia) so she thought they'd just happened. It was real to her, she was incredibly detailed recounting what her sister had said when she visited that I believed her. I asked what sister was wearing and how old she looked and that was where it all fell apart and she realised for herself that her sister was fifty years younger than she should be. The absolute worst time was just after she'd had a nap when she couldn't distinguish between memories, dreams and reality.

@spababe I actually cried with relief when they took her for the procedure and gave me my marching orders which I think they misinterpreted and took pity on me.

Went to a friends on the way home for emergency coffee and venting session. Just about to have lunch and then round to at 3pm when I pick her up and have to get her downstairs in the lift in a wheelchair (she's claustrophobic).

I'm hoping they've given her enough meds to stop her having a full on meltdown. For once she was desperate for them to sedate her instead of kicking up about 'not being in control'.

I'm staying over tonight and very much hoping to tuck her up in bed and do my own thing.

@MintyCedric and that's your whole day gone. That's what the critics don't see.
Took my Mum for a routine appt on the day I was supposed to be going to Gatwick to fly out the following day. They decided to keep her in, so I had to tell the rest of the family to go to Gatwick whilst I took Dad home, picked up her overnight stuff and meds, and dropped it all back at the hospital before heading away. My Mum cried and asked me to stay with her until she was transferred to the ward which was just impossible. The staff asked me where I was going and for how long and I made it quite clear I was still going or 5 people's holidays would be ruined. When I mentioned the meds, everyone just looked at me and it was quite clear I was expected to go to her house and get them before setting off. I got to Gatwick at 10pm. Hardly a relaxing start to a holiday and what a bitch of a daughter for going in the first place.

Knotaknitter the not wanting responsibility is my experience too with DF. More specifically needing a fall guy for if things go wrong. When he moved nearer to us I was very careful to step back and make final decisions his (even if I basically prepared and presented shortlists). There was an issue with final meter readings, refund made, then told that was in error & was billed again. I left him to do it so he could've made a mistake but he will never ever admit that. It's my fault that I didn't check, yep I'll do the nearly 100 mile round trip to read a meter that you've been checking for the last 40 years. My DH paid it in the end for the sake of my sanity.
Lately it was my fault that DF has food poisoning. He had food poisoning from a ready meal that I bought 9 days previously. He knew it was out of date, that it looked funny and smelled funny but still chose to eat it. But it's my fault because I made the purchase. Haven't done any food shopping since then.

@spababe I hope it was long and relaxing holiday.

I'm already worrying about whether I'll actually manage mine next year...God only knows what might go south in the meantime.

She's going to be ready at 2.45pm so that'll be me until probably late tomorrow afternoon as she needs someone with her for 24 hours.

Take gin Minty.

I once had to take DM from a 8am blood test at the GP, to hospital where they kept her in. I dashed home, got her overnight things, went back to the hospital to drop them on the ward and told the staff I was going home to work so that I only had to take the morning as leave. When I got there in the evening they said she'd been asking for me, and where on earth had I been? The woman in the bed opposite had three middle aged (I assume daughters) all sat with her the whole time, all four happily chatting. I sat looking at them for the visiting hour in the evening (while DM slept next to me) wondering if I was the only daughter with a full time job. I'm the sort of person who would be suggesting we divvy it up so that we each take a day so that I get get on with all the other stuff that is piling up, like work, feeding the kids, etc.

Hello all. I read that thread Minty. People have no idea until they are living it. Yes my mum brought me up, but I was off her hands at 18. I've been looking after her for 30 years plus now!! We looked at some photos of her holidays past the other day. She's been to Australia, all over Europe, USA, New Zealand. She had a lovely life and certainly didn't think of her parents while she was living it.. however I mention that I've finally renewed my long expired passport so we could book a holiday perhaps next year and get a face pulled. Makes me so cross.

It's interesting hearing what's been said about hallucinations. Mum is convinced she has heard me call her, convinced that someone has knocked on her door, convinced that she has slept all night when it is only midnight.

I have dismissed it all as just her being elderly but I'm beginning to realise that it is all part of her mental decline.

I've just spoken to her on the phone. She is very down and very tired. She is so confused. She wanted to phone my uncle so I told her to call the nurse and she would help her but she didn't know how to do that. So sad for her.

@notaflyingmonkey there was a family like that when my dad was in after his fall...dad have a new hip replacement after falling and breaking the existing one...mum, two sons and two daughters.

They were tag teaming the whole time so there was at least one of them with each parent, often two.

I remember one day I got to work at 7.30 to enable me take an hour for lunch so I could go and feed dad his meal, went back, ate a crappy sandwich from the hospital cafe at my desk, finished at 4.30, went back, fed dad his dinner, waited to speak to the doctor on duty and eventually left at 8.15pm. Every time I went they were there, making arrangements for their mum together helping their dad with his physio...

I just about made it to the lift before completely breaking down.

Minty while I've been keeping up with mum's garden I was caught by a daughter of a neighbour. All I've heard for years is how wonderful the neighbour's children are, they do this, they do that, she spends nights with them. My standard reply is that mum should have thought about this when she stopped at one child, there are four daughters who all live locally and a granddaughter. I have heard the story from the other side now, their mother plays them off one against the other, after years of care some of them think it's time that mum/granny should think about moving and are now shockingly booking holidays without any thought for the impact this will have on the rota. I left being glad that there is only me. (Apologies if I've told this before)

My lowest week was driving to MILs to collect the very specific list of items she needed in hospital, driving to mum's and doing my stint there, driving to see MIL in the next town, failing totally to find somewhere to park, visiting MIL and returning home with a load of soiled laundry and another list of things that needed to be collected from her house. Looking back I wonder why I just didn't say that I was only going to be visiting once a week but that was at the time when I still thought I could it all. Then I was prepared to sacrifice my life for everyone else's and now I can say no to things.

Well I'm one of three and you wouldn't know it!
The last 3 times mum has been admitted it's all been on me.
She was in for 6 days on one of those admissions....
At the time I was working pt, my sister wasnt working and my was brother working shifts (earlies so he finishes at 2.30pm)
I had booked cinema tickets for me and ds1 for a long awaited film and I had to phone my brother to ask him to visit once
He was not happy 🤬
My sister went on a 4 day break in that time too. Local so she could have visited.
Instead she spent 4 days with her abusive ex and his vile family.
It was me that got her to the emergency Dr, me that took her into hospital and me that did every visit except one in those 6 days.
Siings do not necessarily mean help/sharing of load 😒

The dynamic has changed somewhat now...
My sister left her that of a h and after some time is working again.
My brother is still useless.
Mum moved and seems happy but I'm doing voluntary work ATM so I think my siblings assume I have nothing to do...
My sister sees mum for 30-60 mins once a week.
My brother phones her every day.
They both live closer to her than I do...

During the three week hospital stay when I was visiting M-F and did daily laundry I found out that her beloved brother who makes the sun rise each day lives within sight of the hospital. It might be all of a 15 minute walk. For me it's a 40 minute drive one way if I miss rush hour. Brother managed to visit once because he had to go to his seaside home to sort out the boiler. You'd think the holiday home was in Sydney but no, it's all of 90 minutes away so doesn't call for a three week absence. What irritates me is that he's the reason she won't move to closer to her daughter where she could actually get some real support. I think she knows she won't see him if she moves because Mr Excuses doesn't visit now when he's only half an hour up the road.

I hear you @knotaknitter!
1 x 2 minute phone call each day and the sun shines out of his arse.
Mum has recently bought my (45 year old married) brother the following;
Foot fungal treatment
Hay-fever meds
Deodorant
Because he can't be expected to go the chemist himself!
I simply smile and nod these days...

@gonow That will resonate with so many on here. 18 v 30 is quite a thought. I’m at 21 v 20 and am worn out.

Oh blimey!

No, I'm well aware that siblings aren't the holy grail and often quite relieved that it's one less things to navigate.

Well I was en route to the hospital at 2.40 and mum was giving me instructions by test...nowhere to park, until an attendant stepped in and allocated me an overflow space.

Took a wheelchair upstairs and had a predicatble meltdown about her going down in the lift as she claustrophobic. A nurse came out of a lift whilst we were having a 'heated debate' about the fact she'd had heavy sedation and it was too risky to tackle 4 flights of stairs and offered to take us down in the staff lift, bless her.

Reasonably peaceful once back at home...then she started going on about L again. She reckons if I can't accept him it will damage our relationship.

I told her if she couldn't respect my wishes and stop going on about him to me there wouldn't be a relationship to damage.

@MintyCedric 💐

I remember saying on a past thread that I wasnt sure your relationship with your mother would survive after your dad died because of her behaviour. I'm so sorry x

Put you and your dd first. Step back. For your own sanity.

What has the charity said re: L?

My situation would honestly be easier without siblings. I do everything anyway. They both take advantage of mum. I always know when my sister is after money as she suddenly starts visiting more often!

Fundamentally, mum has capacity and so can make her own decisions (even if they damage her health/bank balance/mental health).

My epiphany is that unless it negatively impacts me or my family I just smile and nod. I give my opinion if asked (which she usually ignores) but one can only advise.

She's been going on about L since last night...'I don't know what your problem is...he's such a nice man' etc.

The agency has just been on the phone, checking to see if she's happy with the service and she's confirmed that she will need him tomorrow as 'my daughter's here at the moment, just for a few hours, but she's going soon and I'll be on my own again...'

Not only have I been at her beck and call since 7am yesterday, she's got friends coming round this afternoon.

Aaaaarggghhh!!!