Cockroach cafe 🪳 Spring 2022 🪳

[MereDintofPandiculation]

Welcome! Those of you who have been before will notice the Bad Daughters’ Room is now called the Kumquat Room, and there are a couple of fine kumquats in the Conservatory.

Check also the Stationery cupboard with, among other things, the 🪳emoticon ready to cut and paste.

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 🪳 mes amis/amies, and may you all live to fight another day.

Could you talk to the GP / hospital? Unless she has a healthcare power of attorney for him they shouldn't be accepting the instruction to cancel from her in any event, so if what she's telling you is true they're not dealing properly with their patient. The GP won't tell you anything, but you could tell him or her what you've said here and ask for it to be noted.

So sorry about your situation @MereDintofPandiculation. Hope we can be that bit of the help to you which you've been to some of us.
And hearing about everyone's current woes is a reminder to me to count my blessings - mum is difficult but she's ok living alone, still able to phone and mostly lucid. I'm living the dream.

• Also remember that cockroaches are tough, tough enough to withstand an apocalypse, apparently. We live on!

@Lightuptheroom I asked DH what he would do in this situation - he said that if he felt the appointment was in his DF's best interests, he would distract his mum eg bring a plate to break in the kitchen or something he knows would divert his mum. Meanwhile his sister and her husband would whisk DF out of the house to the appointment. I can see that working in their family, not sure if it would in yours, but that's one approach!

Thanks for the idea, we normally seperate them, but in this instance it's a mid week appointment and only my sister is close enough to actually take him. DM now seems to have filled his head with all sorts of rubbish including that he won't cope with fasting for 6 hours so we don't know what's happening.

@Mum5net ,@countrygirl99 @TheIoWfairy thanks for your good wishes.

Yes, @TheIoWfairy , when I first joined this board it helped enormously to see that a) the problems we were having were not unusual and b) things could be so much worse.

Someone I knew used to say "Your own problems are the best ones for you" and it's true. I read posts on here and always realise others cope with far more than I did.

When I saw mum last week she was so much better than she has been for a long while - happy and smiling and even remembered some of our jokes. I'm going to see her with my aunt today - aunt hasn't seen her for three years and I have no idea whether mum will know her or not.

How's everyone doing?

I just had a call from the Lifeline people...mum's bracelet had gone off and they called her twice on the house phone and twice on her mobile and got no answer.

Went straight round to discover that as predicted she'd knocked it getting out of bed and didn't have her hearing aids in 🙄!

Oh Minty! That would make me cry with anger and frustration and the pent up anxiety of not knowing what you would find when you got there.

I had a lovely visit with my aunt yesterday. She is my dad's youngest sister - a 16 year age gap. She was saying that aside from our other sister my mum is the person who has been in her life the longest and how when she was a young girl my mum was her idol - exotic and glamourous - not an image I have ever had of her! Mum was so pleased to see her. She kept saying over and over "I don't believe your here. Are you really here?" They looked at old photos that she had put on the ipad and mum actually volunteered a story about the first time she and my aunt had met.

We were both a bit tearful on the way home but she said that if that is to be her last memory of my mum she is happy that mum knew her and remembered her and it was a lovely memory to have.

Oh hairbrush that's really, really lovely. What a wonderful experience and memory to have.

That would make me cry with anger and frustration and the pent up anxiety of not knowing what you would find when you got there.

Tbh I barely bat an eyelid these days. I know she often doesn't wear her hearing aids when she's alone and certainly doesn't put them in as soon as she gets up.

As soon as I pull into the road I can see her house and whether the curtains are open...if I'd got there and they weren't it would've been more concerning, or if I'd got a call halfway through the day. Late at night or early morning I know the odds are she's just not heard the phone.

It'll come as massive shock when I'm proved wrong at some point because tbh at this stage I'm pretty convinced she'll go on forever, if not outlive me.

Tbh when I got the call this morning I had just started unwrapping a new book freshly delivered from Amazon and my first thought was 'FFS is she psychic?' 😳

Oh Minty I got that all the time when mum first had her lifeline. Then she had trouble with the smoke alarm (batteries were running down) and every time it went off she pressed the lifeline pendant but never answered their calls so they would call me.
The one time she did fall, in the garden, she forgot to press the pendant button and eventually crawled up the garden path after lying there for an hour and didn’t tell me until the next day.
She has a falls detector one now but has reverted to the little pendant button as it is ‘’Too bulky”.

MIL paid extra for the fall detector pendant which then lived on the shelf. I'd take the shopping round and she'd be without a pendant, much good it would do her on the shelf when she was on the floor. She was often found on the floor by the carers coming in, even after she'd spent the night on the floor she still didn't wear the pendant. She did think to press it when she couldn't shut the freezer door so I suppose there's that. At the time I thought she was just being bloody minded but knowing what came after I suspect it was cognitive issues.

Mum could get herself up from the floor right up until her last few months and called me only if she thought she'd injured herself.

I’m new to this thread, my DF 83 has been showing signs of confusion occasionally for around a year but has suddenly really deteriorated, DM kept insisting she was coping and he was ok until Sunday when I popped over to see them and she shouted at me to take him away and never bring him back.

He stayed the night at my house, I was woken by him ringing my doorbell at 2am when he was having a wander, all the lights were on but I realised in the morning he had switched the boiler off so we had no hot water 🙄.

I’m just starting sorting out ASC assessment and applying for attendance allowance and my world seems to have changed overnight, my DM has let him come back home but I have agreed to have him every weekend until we get more support in place, I work full time so not sure this is a long term solution.

Oh good lord @Rattysparklebum that sounds challenging...is there any other family that can help out? It's a lot to take on when you're also working full time, although I fully appreciate there aren't always other options ☹.

Mum asked today if I'd paid the balance for my holiday, which I have, just this morning. She is not amused by my going or by the fact that DD's Godmother is going to stay with her for the week 'when she has a grandmother she would stay with ...I suppose I'll have to fall out with both of you then...'

FFS!

Thanks @MintyCedricRidesAgain! I am hoping things will settle down into a new normal, I do have other family near by and we are all pulling together but, we all have responsibilities, work, young children, own health issues etc so it is hard for all of us.

Your DM sounds quite a character!

Your DM sounds quite a character!

Ummm...that's one way of putting it!

@Rattysparklebum A sudden change can be something else entirely - most usual cause being a urinary tract infection. Don't be afraid to bring in the experts on this, mum was very anti-social services but I wish they'd been on the scene years earlier rather than at the last minute. It takes long enough to get care in place these days, all the more reason to start early.

Here's hoping that you find that new normal quickly and painlessly.

@MintyCedricRidesAgain Even your holiday gets to be all about her - how many days do you think it will be when you are away before she has a crisis, one she can guilt trip you for when you get back.Just as well that the phone is so unreliable where you are going, you can't be called back.

My DM has fallen over everyday for the last 3 days. I don't know if she's fallen out of bed or fallen when she's got up out of bed - she doesn't always tell the exact truth, depending on what she thinks my DSis are going to say. For example when she said she'd fallen out of bed I was talking about some kind of bed rail, which she doesn't like the idea of, so she quickly changed it to "I fell when I was out of bed and was going to walk to the bathroom".

She is already under the care of the falls team, but doesn't do what they suggest. They told her that using a walking stick wasn't giving her support and they gave her a zimmer and a wheeled walker and she refuses to use either.

DSis has called the Falls Team today to update them. I don't know what else to do. DMs been on the phone asking me why I haven't gone round if I know she's fallen, but she hasn't hurt herself, & my brother in law and nephew & niece are all in the house (she lives with Dsis). She says it's not the same as me being there.

I now feel upset & guilty about not going round straight away (I'm going this afternoon) and feel I need to spend time in the bad girls room.

That's very familiar MissMarplesNiece, though it's my dad who is supposed to use 2 sticks or a walker yet decides to use neither, then tells me isn't it lucky, he fell against the door to the wet room and knocked it off its rail (sliding door) then a week later fell again and knocked it back on again!!! Don't be guilted into visiting, she's fine so do it when you want to X

I was thinking about the Queen & her apparent reluctance to use a wheelchair. Maybe her children are as frustrated as we are, lol.

DM is exactly the same. She has a walker but flatly refuses to use it, relying on a stick. I took her to the optician yesterday and she can barely walk 100 yards. Her balance is terrible. But the Walker makes her feel old!

A couple of times I’ve taken her to shops and borrowed a wheelchair and she’s been quite happy to go round the shop in the chair. Much more pleasant for both of us. But when I’ve suggested buying a lightweight one - oh nooo.

BestIsWest I suspect the reason why my mum won't use the walker is because she thinks it makes her look old. She's got one of those pretty flowery sticks which I think is not actually the right height for her. I tried to get her to use a different stick, one of those grey metal ones, which is a better length but she says it's too heavy for her.

My 89 year old nan in law only needed a stick and she used it if she had to, but whenever we took her shopping she's immediately commandeer the trolley so she didn't have to 😁.

She was an absolute sweetheart though, even though she was a feisty old bird as well. Still miss her.

I understand the not wanting to feel old. My hearing aids make me feel about 80. There again, not wearing them and sitting nodding and smiling and letting the conversation wash over me I’m sure makes me look 80, so not much choice.

of course, if we revered our elders for their accumulated knowledge and experience, we’d all be looking forward to the day when we could wield a walker as a badge of our wisdom

I’m a bit in shock about it tbh. A photo of DS’s prom came up on Facebook memories and there are DM and DF either side of him looking fit and well and upright, not a walking stick between them.DM is wearing jeans and a stripy T-shirt and looks so young - late 60s at most. It’s 8 years ago so she would have been 76. I can’t believe the difference in her. They were so fit and active and now DF is no longer here and she can barely walk. Dementia is so cruel.