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.

Hello everyone, I've been lurking for a while but decided to accept the comfy chair. I've brought posh biscuits!
My dearest DF died very recently. He was the one that officially had dementia. Now I'm at my wit's end with my mum who has always been difficult. She's struggling, more than usual. I'm sure she's got some memory issues on top of her existing personality. It's like dealing with a 4 year-old. I already have a teenager and a grumpy middle-aged partner at home on top of a full-on job. Mum seems to want me dancing around her now too. I'm on strike today and thought I'd join you lot.

Does she have adhd?

GP told me a reason to get a proper diagnosis is that I don't get a dementia diagnosis (yet) , as there are some similar things going on. I ask because I can also forget eggs, 1.24hrs in the Instant Pot. 😁🥚

Adhd can be much worse if you're menopausal, so you'd have noticed it, depending on your age. Not diagnosed in women that often until recently and presents differently.

Iwaswilling I think the majority of us would say that it takes a crisis for things to change. I know that's not what you want to hear but it's hard to overcome the self delusion of "we're managing just fine as we are". I dare say there are some people who have managed a transition to paid carers but they wouldn't be pulling their hair out, awake all night with worry and posting here.

I don't know.... the transition to paid carers isn't worry free, sometimes a stress of its own, and neither is the move to a home as we have found. We've got the threat medical possibility of dm improving significantly to the point of regaining capacity in her records. It seems vanishingly unlikely to me but I'm not a doctor (though I've read a few papers that suggest they are ignoring certain factors when they say that). But it means we take all sorts of decisions not knowing if she will approve if she gets better. I guess as long as we can explain what we've done and why, it's reasonable.

@PermanentTemporary I understand your concerns, dad was challenging. Care provided a whole new set of people to apologise to - thankfully they'd mostly encountered it all before!

'a whole new set of people to apologise to' is it exactly. But I have to recognise that it isn't me who's wiping up poo. Wee, yes, quite a lot, but not poo.

Hello, fairy! Lovely biccies!

Lovely to have people to chat to. DH and I have a clear plan of management to get to the Memory Clinic appt booked for 17 December, that mostly involves call screening.

Also, I've brought sticky gingercake as my contribution!

I like ginger cake. I'm feeling very sympathetic to everyone else joining. Please accept a hug from me 🤗

Ooh gingercake yummy.

@MereDintofPandiculation Thanks, just happy to have found you all!

Hi all, have brought Jaffa cakes to share!

Living with my maternal grandmother the last 5 years who was diagnosed with dementia 6/7 years ago it’s been such a long slow decline that I barely noticed it, but have had to change my job and reduce my hours to fit around her. Im a nurse so it’s only when I talk to others and my partner of 18 months do I realise how much support I give and the toll it’s taken. I’m 36 living separately from my partner and whilst I love my nana to bits It can get all too much at times

We’ve had several episodes of incontinence and I finally worked out it was down to constipation overflow so now have regular meds and using pads (tena lady silhouette by far the best and accepted pads I’ve found)

[Scoffs ginger cake and jaffa cakes]
Continence is such a breaking point. Hearing my mum on the phone yesterday in distress at her new home saying she 'just needs a little bit of help now and then, I don't need this' and relating that to the woman who managed to block her previous home's entire drainage system by putting her faeces down the basin is so difficult.

I do love the fact that we can share experiences with faecal incontinence whilst scoffing cake in our special room!

As if the olds weren't enough bother one of the bloody dogs did a runner on the walk this morning. 13000 steps later I caught him but we had a search party out by then. I never let that one off lead, for obvious reasons, but he got tangled the branches of a fallen tree and while I was untangling a pheasant flew over. DH was searching in an area with a bad mobile signal and his dad tried to phone him 3 times. First was a mistake and the 2nd 2 were to tell him the first was a mistake but of course the line was breaking up and he couldn't understand a word.

I know as I type this I’m crazy even wasting the time and energy but I’m really bugged by a clip I saw on Facebook last night from one of these 999 programmes. Lady of 100 living alone had fallen and all the comments were damning the ‘relatives’ and declaring how they would NEVER leave a relative like that, they would be there with her/have her to live with them/be delivering a thousand acts of imaginary benevolence. The lady was 100, competent, closest relative a niece who could be 80 herself … why is it so hard to think through what it’s like to be that relative? Why do people think of older people as children to be told what is best for them? It just adds to my own FOG. There you go

"A little bit of help now and then" still makes me panic when I read it. That was my mother's watchword. The fact that "the little bit of help" extended to every aspect of her life - dressing, shopping, cleaning, food prep, turning on the tv, the electric blanket, the lights when it got dark - just a little bit of help!

And let's not think about the incontinence. Those of you dealing with that - I am in awe of you all.

I am about to telephone the bank. Mother desperately wants me to "give the kids their money" but I don't want to do anything until I have spoken to the bank, if they will even be willing to speak to me. Otherwise it is going to be £100's for the Court of Protection.

And I've phoned the bank. "It's all quite simple" - except that it isn't! She needs to phone them to add me as a third party to her account. She can not phone them. I can't phone when I am with her because my phone has no signal in the home. I was on hold for 30 mins before I could speak to anyone. I feel I have fallen down a rabbit hole.

"Get her to give us a ring" - she has not spoken to anyone in the bank for 10 years or so. "You won't be able to bank online, it will have to be in branch" - nearest branch is a 40 minute bus ride away. The sheer hassle of it has reduced me to tears. I know they have to keep her safe and that's what I want to do as well but it is so complicated!

@IthinkIsawahairbrushbackthere would it be possible to phone the bank from your dms home on one of their phones? Or does anyone in the family have a phone in a different network that may have signal?
Your dm has just got to say she gives permission?

Is it worth getting a cheap phone and PAYG sim that you can just use at the home if your mum wants to talk to family/friends etc?

...why is it so hard to think through what it’s like to be that relative?

In the early months of dad's decline I felt like I was banging my head against a brick wall. Everything we suggested was discussed as 'it has to be the patients voice'.

Never mind that he was largely unable to understand what was going on much less make decisions, or that the stress on us wasn't helping anyone.

Had an emergency trip to GP with mum this morning...a bite from last week has become infected causing an infection around her right elbow...apparently septic arthritis is a thing.

She was obviously anxious so has been monumentally hard work this morning.

Hello all, familiar faces and those who’ve joined since I was last here. I have nothing new to report (we’re just trudging on with the same unresolved issues, like refusal to engage with health services over reportedly serious health matters) so I am thinking of you all.

@MintyCedric dad had septic arthritis last year. It was when his GP was insisting on phone appointments and decided his joint pain was just his osteoporosis/arthritis and prescribed anti-inflammatories. So he ruled up on hospital for 2 weeks😡. This was also before mum had her dementia diagnosis so the hospital were updating her snd she couldn't understand the difference between septic arthritis snd sepsis ehich caused a bit of alarm.

@IthinkIsawahairbrushbackthere A third party mandate only works while they have capacity, after which it is no longer valid.

(I will switch to invisible writing, which I would like you all to pretend you haven't seen. Mum died last night, I think I said I didn't think she'd see Christmas but it is still a shock. I'm coping by kidding myself that she's tucked up in the nursing home. I am also thanking past-mum for telling what little remains of her family what her wishes were regarding "the arrangements". I was expecting a run in but she's made her wishes very clear to each of them)

Knota