Cockroach Cafe - come and try our new sunroom

[MereDintofPandiculation]

Welcome, come and see our new sunroom/conservatory, open just in time for the colder weather, and opens straight off the Bad Daughter’s room.

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.

Oh and visiting.

Apparently it's an hour a day pre-booked but obviously the fact that I'm her carer due to hearing issues is a potential loophole.

Whether ot not she'll realise that I don't know.

@BestIsWest that is what I miss too. We would go shopping with my uncle - usually the local market - then out for lunch. In recent years my uncle didn't really want to drive so my husband would take us and we would go a little further afield. I realised a few years ago though that mum wasn't getting involved like she used to. "Whose presents are we looking for mum? " "Don't know, can't think". Even though I would write a list of people she might want to buy for and suggest things for them.

Then we would get home and she would want to know "When we go to x/y/z because I need to get presents for a/b/c/." Looking back I can see that the dementia was starting even then. I put it down to lack of sight and the pain but i think it was her general decline. I have to say though that although I miss things about Christmas with her I don't miss the pressure and the stress of shopping for her as well as me.

@MintyCedric

Oh and visiting.

Apparently it's an hour a day pre-booked but obviously the fact that I'm her carer due to hearing issues is a potential loophole.

Whether ot not she'll realise that I don't know.

But it doesn't need to be you everyday? Hope you aren't waiting too long x

But it doesn't need to be you everyday?

There's no one else.

GP was quite freaked out when she saw mum's arm. Infection seems to be clearing but she's done a blood test for platelet levels and sent us home to await a call with the results so might be back off again in a couple of hours.

Oh, I thought you mum had some friends who could go...
That's a shame

There's one couple she's friendly with whose grandson has currently got Covid, and another friend about 40 miles away, in her seventies with a partially sighted DH and several grandkids she helps out with. Her neighbour might pop in if she's admitted, and of course there is He Who Must Not Be Named.

She did have a friend that works at the hospital but unfortunately they fell out when said friend backed me over the carer situation after my dad's funeral.

Tbh I wouldn't really expect anyone else to visit her in a hospital setting given the current situation re Covid and I'm not sure if they would allow multiple visitors anyway.

Still, an hour a day is more manageable than the current 3/4 hours to bobbing backwards and forwards from breakfast until tea time that I've been doing this week.

We were talking about my car on the journey home and I said I couldn't wait to take it on holiday next year to which mum replied that she'll 'have to go in somewhere' for a fortnight as she can't cope with me not being around the corner 🙄.

@MintyCedric

There's one couple she's friendly with whose grandson has currently got Covid, and another friend about 40 miles away, in her seventies with a partially sighted DH and several grandkids she helps out with. Her neighbour might pop in if she's admitted, and of course there is He Who Must Not Be Named.

She did have a friend that works at the hospital but unfortunately they fell out when said friend backed me over the carer situation after my dad's funeral.

Ah

@MintyCedric

Tbh I wouldn't really expect anyone else to visit her in a hospital setting given the current situation re Covid and I'm not sure if they would allow multiple visitors anyway.

Still, an hour a day is more manageable than the current 3/4 hours to bobbing backwards and forwards from breakfast until tea time that I've been doing this week.

We were talking about my car on the journey home and I said I couldn't wait to take it on holiday next year to which mum replied that she'll 'have to go in somewhere' for a fortnight as she can't cope with me not being around the corner 🙄.

🙄🙄

Settling down for Strictly. I find it an effort to be in the same room as my mum at the moment but we both enjoy it and send text messages throughout - we often agree in this situation, unusually!! Anyone else? 💃🏻

@IoWfairy

Settling down for Strictly. I find it an effort to be in the same room as my mum at the moment but we both enjoy it and send text messages throughout - we often agree in this situation, unusually!! Anyone else? 💃🏻

I'm at mums watching atm! :)

It gives us something to talk about

@Opal8
It's lovely to connect - the wonderful dancers we'd like to imagine we were, rather that the frustrating old woman and the worn-out, middle-aged carer we have become!!

Yep...no call from hospital so back home watching Strictly.

Will call mum after for post morten!

@MintyCedric , that sounds like an ordeal today. Hope you are able to relax this evening!

Sorry @MintyCedric I cross posted with you. Hope there is nothing more sinister going on with mum's arm.

*@MereDintofPandiculation

How do you manage to stay so kind and so patient?*

It’s very nice of you to say so.

Flippant answer - Because my elderly has been in a nursing home for almost three years and is not my responsibility any more

More serious answer - because Im old. The older you get, the more things you experience, and the moral certainties of your youth dissolve into a blur of seeing the other point of view and being unable to get off the fence. I’m really ashamed of the attitudes of my younger self.

And probably the real answer is because I’m a depressed people pleaser. Crying i can do, but rage isn’t in my vocabulary.

Hope things go well with your mum.

Minty it might be as well to check visiting just in case you need it. It will be on the hospital website. Here it was a designated hour (no good at all if you work) and the same named visitor all week, just the one. It varies so much from one hospital to another, one had relaxed visiting for patients with dementia, the other didn't. Mum was profoundly deaf, there was no exception for that in either hospital.

I hope it doesn't come to a visiting situation and that the arm is showing signs of improvement by tomorrow.

There's no harm in her having a week "in somewhere" while you are away, if she can find somewhere with good food and a decent activity programme she might find the days passing quickly. She will have people there all the time if she wants the company. It means that if anything happens in the future she has the experience of a care setting and it's not a great unknown.

Thanks knot. I have checked it out...it's one visitor for up to an hour per day between 2pm and 8pm, booked directly with the ward.

I agree it wouldn't be a bad thing for her to go somewhere for a bit. We do have somewhere in mind subject to availability. It's a supported housing place where she'd have a studio apartment but 2 communal meal a day and social stuff if she wanted it.

Our local Abbeyfield has guest rooms and I know you can holiday for longer at some of the others in the area. Would she be able to cope or does she need a respite place with higher care?

@Wombat69

As it stands she'd be fine (it's Abbeyfield we're looking at).

But I'm not going away until late July so who knows by then..

Any advice on refusal to acknowledge incontinence? Mum has always been a really clean person and it's hard to see her pretending she hadn't had an accident when I can see she has. I've bought pads and pants in different colours and left them in an obvious place but she won't discuss it. If I contact the nursing scheme we're on will they advise medication? Can I do that against her will?

[quote IoWfairy]@Opal8
It's lovely to connect - the wonderful dancers we'd like to imagine we were, rather that the frustrating old woman and the worn-out, middle-aged carer we have become!![/quote]
Yes! :)

Incontinence. Argh. I was assured by DM's new home (very nice, more of a rehab centre, immensely glad she's there) that she was now wearing pullups. Well, not when I arrived... cue me getting involved yet again. Before Mum's haemorrhage, she informed me that she wasn't very incontinent because she only used light pads. The fact that these were completely inadequate to the job was irrelevant.

I would say that whoever's responsible needs to talk to the GP about her continence. There is medication but dont know if it would be useful. There is an agreement for DM to have covert medication but it took a bit of talking about and specialists involved to get that in place.

My mother has found the phrase 'weak bladder' acceptable....

My DM who can be very awkward about everything piped up with "see a continence nurse or physio, very helpful" when I last mentioned something about a weak bladder. I nearly fell over.

Opal8 it sounds tough but I like your list of boundaries, completely necessary to have them.

Minty I hope your DM improves and you don’t get into too much hassle re hospital visits etc. I entirely get the envy of the people whose resposibility has passed to a new phase where its not all on us – I was hugely envious of a friend whose DM had a care home when we were in the middle of Covid and DM was not accepting any help bar a cleaner - and I’m glad you feel that sense of relief Hairbrush now your DM is taken care of.

Mildly apprehensive of care Covid rules changing again as DM’s home has recently allowed us to visit in rooms, but I don’t think it will affect us so far. I have been really pleased to see DM’s large room with bathroom, I would be v happy to have it in a nice hotel. Also she has been outed by the new social media feed from the care home: ‘Oh I don’t really join in the activities’ ... making Xmas decs: DM doing the paperchains, 1950s singalong: DM waving arms to the Shirelles, chair exercise class: DM giving it laldy with the zimmer frame.

She is a bit delusional, but only mildly, apparently she has to help the staff with dinner and laundry but doesn’t mind, and someone has the power to enter DM’s room unseen while DM is actually in it and steal her fudge.

‘Sensitive bladder’ was the acceptable phrase for DM, and she did talk to the carers who came in about it, after I asked the agency for a ‘sympathetic older lady’ to have a chat with DM.

Knot hope you’re doing OK.

Dint I love that you have the patience and empathy to see things from all sides.

cockroaches all!