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.

@ssd how the hell did you cope?

I just don't know how I can do another round if mum gets less physically able as well

Just got comfy...practitioner phoned.

About to doze off an hour or so later...GP phoned.

Ambulance turned up at 4.25 and has just left. I wasn't allowed to go with her to A & E because of Covid which went down like a cup of cold sick.

She insisted I pack a photo of L as well as her mobile phone, tablet and charger (she'll no doubt be messaging him).

I'm going home for a bath and sleep before I know doubt get a call to pick her up.

Have already had two missed calls and 4 abusive messages accusing me of smiling as she was loaded into the ambulance, saying she'll leave if she's not seen in the next half hour and come home by taxi and that next time she'll do what she wants...

[quote VeryMuchFlaggingMinty]@ssd how the hell did you cope?

I just don't know how I can do another round if mum gets less physically able as well[/quote]
I dont know, tbh. I really dont.

Oh @Minty - I am speechless. The selfishness of her! Please concentrate on you and your daughter for the rest of the day.

Bloody hell Minty

Can you switch your phone off? Let the professionals deal with it. You need a break.

Well Minty, next time she can do just as she wants, exactly as she did this time. Look where that got her. Put your teen parenting hat on, actions have consequences and if you are old enough to make the choice then you are old enough to manage what follows from it. It was her choice to spend the day up a ladder decorating. It must have been a shock to her to find that she's not forty any more, she's going to have to learn to pace herself.

She really has no-one else to blame for this but it will be your fault because you rang for the ambulance. Next time, let her make the call, she's allowed to make stupid decisions (as are we all) but she gets to deal with the fall out. If she doesn't need your help then she doesn't need to call you.

My mother would not stand being told what to do, my line was always "You do what you want love but I'd suggest packing a hospital bag and leaving it next to the front door so it's easy when someone has to call an ambulance"

Just waiting for the physios to wheel her round...she's being despatched with walking stick, frame and commode which will hopefully all fit in the back of the car!

She has a shopping delivery coming between pm and 5pm which she'll need help with. The physios have seen her up and down a flight of stairs so will see how she's doing after the deliveryand if I can get home.

Didn't really sleep as knew I'd likely be called.

So that's car accident, contact from test and trace (am testing daily and masked up), mum to A & E and DD's 4 month old laptop needing to go in for repairs...all in the space of 6 days.

FMAL.

@Knotaknitter I agree in theory but by not intervening it just makes more aggro for me in the long run.

I realise that Minty but it's the same scenario as helicopter mums continually rescuing kids, they never need to deal with any consequences.

Commode liners are a thing, they absorb the liquid and then you bin them. Yes they are worse for the environment than tipping it down the loo and washing it but it might allow your mum to have a bit of control by being able to DIY.

The commode sat unused in MIL's dining room, she preferred to fail to get to the toilet and then deal with the extra laundry. Next time she'd get there fast enough, next time.

@VeryMuchFlaggingMinty

Oh obviously she ignored what I told her about only painting what she could reach and has bee up and down a ladder half the bloody day 🙄

Be fair, Minty, I’d do exactly the same (Except hopefully be a bit more self reliant about the inevitable consequences)

Hving read the rest of your postst, I realise my lighthearted one wasn’t well timed, sorry Minty

You're alright Mere

Home now...the adventure seems to have given her a bit of spirit and she's calmed down a lot. Seems to be managing a bit better with the stick.

She loathes and fears hospitals even if she has company so is usually beyond foul when she has to go to one. I always forget how bad it is. I usually manage to get the first nurse to triage us to give her some diazepam straight off the bat .

Minty you've got the patience of a saint

Minty, I agree with knot that nothing will change until you change something here. You must protect yourself and your dd.
And it was decorating ( up a ladder) that caused my otherwise healthy fils massive stroke. 9 years in a wheelchair.

Back to emptying commodes again.. plus ca change!

I'm staying for dinner and hope to escape afterwards...we'll see.

@ssd meant to say thank you….. this cafe has been a lifeline. I was here in the early days…. And I’m still here now!!! 🌺🌺🌺

I remember your name @thesandwich

Im glad its helped, it really helped me

@NewYearNewMinty I'm so sorry to hear you've had another crisis to contend with, it's relentless isn't it? I'm hoping that you and DD will be able to look after yourselves a bit now, how are you both feeling?

@ssd another one to say a big thank you, it is a combination of this thread and my closest friend saying to me after Christmas (when DM was foul), 'you need to step back, she'll kill you' that has given me some much needed strength to deal with her a bit better.

Having set off early to collect Mum at the agreed time this morning, trying to avoid either reversing into her or finding her outside my neighbour's house with a face on that would sour milk if I'm 2 seconds late, I found her half-way round already! I don't know why the inability to just wait at her own house for me to collect her 'on time' gets my dander up so much. My mood wasn't improved as she insists on wittering on when I'm at a junction or roundabout. I had to ask her again this morning, nicely I should add, not to talk as I can't concentrate. She was quiet for about 10 seconds and then restarted! So I shushed her so she's in a bit of a huff with me!

Your post made me chuckle Fantasea...they are like wilful kids ..why can't they just do as they're bloody told!

Don't think there will be much chance of time to myself for the next couple of days. Mum's getting about indoors with the aid of a stick, but it's slow and painful and she been needing help with the stairs, commode and getting dressed.

Hopefully the commode issue will right itself today and I'm fairly confident she'll be more or less functioning by the end of the week. She's been onto the agency to see if L can stay a bit longer on Wednesday so I can I have the whole day off, and has been happy for me to leave her for a couple of hours so I can come home and get a few things done here.

It's a pita having the situation thrust upon me, but in some ways it's easier to be be doing it in these circumstances as there's a genuine need, rather than just mooching around because she doesn't like her own company which always feels like a massive waste of my time and makes me really cross and resentful.

I thought L had moved on Minty, or did I miss something?

@notaflyingmonkey he's not moved on but he has backed off almost completely outside of his contracted visits.

@ssd - it wasn’t the café you started, it was the whole board, wasn’t it? A very good job done!

Thank you. I'm so glad its helped so many.

@ssd I'd like to thank you too, I had a year of single handedly coping with mum's recognised dementia and MIL's unrecognised confusion and I needed all the support I could get. There wasn't a lot of it going in the real world because of covid so this board was a real lifeline.

My (not very) exciting news is that I found the missing wedding certificate which was with everyone's birth certificates, my grandparent's death certificates and a receipt for a burial plot in perpetuity. I've filled the bin and avoided having to mow the lawn as it was raining. That will do me for another week.