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.

@permanentTemporary you would yhink that is a good solution buy is met with "your mother is not going in a home" and a mega sulk. What will happen is he will need hospital/have a fracture or similar and will have a tantrum when we can't commit to dropping everything (we all work full time) to look after them for an unspecified period away from our own homes. We are prepared for it. It won't be pleasant but we'll cope in the end. We know who the flying monkey will be so are planning to speak to her after a family meeting to put her in the picture.

@countrygirl99 That must be incredibly hard for all of you, waiting for the inevitable crisis. Maybe not for FIL because he has the certainty of his convictions, everything will be according to plan and XYZ will certainly happen. It's not worth having the discussion, he's not going to change his position and because of that there's no plan you can put in place ahead of time.

@Knotaknitter we will just make sure everyone knows everyone else's red lines as to what help they can give to save a bit of hassle and negotiation when the inevitable crisis happens. We are away for 2 weeks in June and not only will our phones be switched off to avoid roaming charges but we will be camping most nights so they wouldn't get charged anyway. Not that we could do anything from Southern Africa but at least we can make sure we haven't been volunteered for anything on out return!

@countrygirl99 I'm so sorry to hear of all your struggles, it must be so worrying and distressing for you. I hope you can find a satisfactory solution for yourself and your family Xx.

@VeryMuchFlaggingMinty our DMs are related! Mine can't work the Tesco site at all, although she could at the start of lockdown. Your mum's basket though . My DM grudgingly agreed to online orders when she moved here as the stores are too busy for me and my immune system. I had to go over with my laptop and add in each item, with a huge discussion about prices per kg, rejecting items which she wanted which had gone up by 10p and saying things like 'I'll need a mortgage to pay for this' as it went over about £30. She is really very affluent I should add but so mean. I would then return the following day to supervise the order's arrival, handle the substitution confusion and have her discuss with the delivery drivers why they 'didn't have Hovis, there's always loads of them', it was maddening! Every order had something wrong with it and there was so much huffing and puffing as she 'needs to SEE what she's buying' so eventually she wore me down so much I agreed to take her to the store weekly. I sit in the car on my phone whilst she shops for up to an hour and a half, sourcing the perfect lettuce and bottle of milk. On the upside, it's a 15 minute drive each way for me versus a two day event with an online order so it's preferable but still so wearing.

All this online shopping mayhem reminds me of my mum early summer 2020. Not a supermarket shop but they needed a new pond pump and garden centres were still closed. She had managed to find what they wanted but when I went over she complained the site wouldn't let her pay. She kept pressing a button saying buy and had 10 pumps in her basket at £79 each!

I’ve a feeling that one’s idea of a reasonable price gets set at around retirement age, certainly for less frequent purchases, which become even less frequent once you’re retired. Anything costing more than that is “expensive”. You start by moving down the quality scale, but once you’re buying supermarket “value” ranges, and having watery instant coffee at church coffee mornings instead of going to coffee shops, you end up having to start paying increases, there’s nowhere cheaper left to go.

Add to that that your income is creeping up like a snail (3% increase this year against expected 8% inflation) and your options for increasing it are limited, so you tend to see all those years ahead of you and try to cling on to as much of your money as you can.

Did we see that the guidance on care home visiting have changed? No test is now needed for visitors unless they are providing personal care. The summary of the changes is here:

www.gov.uk/government/publications/infection-prevention-and-control-in-adult-social-care-covid-19-supplement/summary-of-changes-to-covid-19-guidance-for-adult-social-care-providers

Thanks for that Knot.

Hi
Long term lurker here - just met up with my DM and my (adult) son and found out that my dad has been poorly this week - daily hospital visits for antibiotics
She has form for this- about 20 years ago he had a bad accident and had been in hospital over a week before she told me (I was living abroad at the time though)
They won't tell me any medical issues - I only know my dad has had skin cancer as they left an appointment card on the fridge

@mumofEandE that is so hard. I can almost see the point of not telling you while you were living abroad if she was afraid that you would drop everything to visit and she didn't want to worry you but it seems hurtful to be left out of the loop like that, especially when you are in contact.

I had an email from mum's home today. They have two cases of covid and four staff off with it. They are still open to visitors but obviously everyone has to have a negative LFT before visiting.

They have taken mum off the Sertraline because she was so sleepy and weak. When we saw her yesterday she was still struggling to speak but she was full of smiles and had tried to feed herself at lunch time which she hasn't done for a fortnight. Bizarrely she said "Tell me something, is my dad still with us?" We said that he wasn't and she said she had no memory of him. But when we left we realised that she refers to my husband, my uncle and my father as dad so it could be one of them that she was thinking about. She has asked before if my husband is still alive because she hasn't seen him since she went into hospital - we don't have a car so my cousin has taken me to visit every time.

My mum has taken the key out of the keybox because "anyone can use it to get in". Sigh

Oh lord countrygirl!

Country girl how are you putting up with her? I tell her that the key

needs to go back to the keybox for her own safety. Ask her what would happen say if she fell in the house and no one could get in help her?
I also tell her that unless she uses the key box your not going to be around to help her out, that you will ring social services and they put her into a nursing home.

DB2 was the one they ground the keybox was empty when he turned up for an arranged visit and she was out. 2nd time in a couple of weeks she has done that to him. Went to let himself in to wait for her thinking she'd probably popped out to the corner for milk/ciggies and made the discovery so he waited in his car. As mum is convinced that there us nothing wrong with her any threats of not going round to help etc are dismissed. DB1 took her to a GP appointment this week. When the GP mentioned her alzheimers she said "I don't know why you think I've got that I've never been tested". 2 memory tests by GP, memory clinic appointments snd a brain scan = never been tested.

I don’t think I ever told my father the code to the keybox. Maybe if she couldn’t get in herself she might believe no-one else can?

The lack of insight into dementia is one of the common elements of the condition. It's not necessarily that they are in denial, if they can't remember it having happened then for them it hasn't happened. In the early stages Mum said "I really must speak to the doctor about my memory" every couple of months, I thought she might have remembered the brain scan as it was in a mobile unit in a car park so was different from regular hospital visits, but no.

DM was dismissive of her diagnosis, and put it down to old age. She used to say she didn't like being labelled as 'demented', which I can understand. So I used to back off at hospital appointments etc once I'd said it, and she'd denied it, and let the staff work it out for themselves.

DB1 has a key so he is going to get extra cut and put one in the keybox without telling mum. Hopefully she won't realise it's there before she's forgotten it bothered her.

Afternoon all - it's been a while but I've brought gin. It's kumquat flavoured.

Firstly, I want to thank everyone who offered advice and support when I rocked up here in November with a FIL in hospital with a broken hip and DH having to provide 24 hr care for his very frail mother while I ran around like a crazy person trying to keep all the wheels on life's wagon. And making a 60odd mile round trip to hospital to get moaned at by FIL because the hospital was awful, the staff didn't know what they were doing and he was only there because of my fussing. (no words...). I was at the end of my proverbial and you fellow Bad Daughters made me feel that I could cope and gave me some really useful practical advice. Thanks again.

Where we are at the moment is that MIL had to have three weeks respite care at the eye-wateringly expensive (and not as good as all that) care home around the corner. She wasn't keen but agreed to it if that was what we thought was best. My MIL is a star and I love her very much. She did okay there from an eating point of view (very poor appetite) but I wasn't impressed that they didn't get her up and walking as much as possible and so she spent almost all her time in her room.

FIL insisted that there was no need for her to be in the home and that we should have just managed. Apparently she needs a little help to move around the house and that's it. Yeah, right... He was also missing her so much that it was a week after he came home before he agreed to let us drive him up to see her.

I contacted social services but wasn't getting anywhere so organised 3 hrs per day of care via a private agency. They're great although FIL is a raging snob and has taken against one of them. As well as providing personal care they also do housework which is a joy as it saves me having to do it all. There's no way FIL would agree to a cleaner coming in.

Three months after my first attempt to get a needs assessment, social services sent out a placement student (lovely girl but about 12) who essentially agreed with the care needs we'd established and now payments of almost two-thirds of the cost are being made by the council. We're Scotland so free personal care which is great as it was costing £600 per week. After i politely queried they agreed to backdate funding to when the care agency started in December.

At the moment, things are ok. We're chugging along. MIL's appetite is still poor and all the Fortisips and so on in the world aren't helping. FIL is still insisting he can do everything - current obsession is with pruning the apple trees and felling a couple of conifers. Turns out that I'm more of a lumberjack than I thought.

But again, thank you. I haven't sat and wept in the supermarket car park when it got too much for ages now and I think that's partly because I know there are other Bad Daughters her to pat me on the shoulder and pass the gin. If I can do the same for anyone else I'm more than willing.

Good grief, that was long! Sorry if anyone ploughed through all of that x

@BurningTheToast I had to check to see if you were the one hunting for a closer flat with the wine cellar/fridge - it's funny the things that you remember. Getting the funding (backdated too) must be such a relief, it makes it easier to sell it as getting a bargain. My line was "with all the taxes you've paid over the years it's about time you started getting something back".

Have you considered getting a private physiotherapist in although I'm not sure that they can build muscle strength if MIL isn't eating. I looked at it when mum started being uncertain on her feet but then it all went west very quickly.

@Knotaknitter - Yes, that was us. In the end I couldn't cope with the stress of even a temp move on top of everything else and so we just resigned ourselves to driving miles. The wine cellar/fridge in that one flat was tempting...

I spoke to a physio about MiL and he offered to go and see her but didn't realistically think there was much that could be done. She lost so much mobility after her lockdown hip fracture and she's never regained it. Her carers are great though and get her doing some walking with her frame every day.

And yes, reminding my secretly-affluent FIL that he's getting payback for all those taxes has made it easier!

@countrygirl99

DB1 has a key so he is going to get extra cut and put one in the keybox without telling mum. Hopefully she won't realise it's there before she's forgotten it bothered her.

Good plan!

Morning
Mums in hospital again with sepsis
I knew what it was was but it was still a 15 hour wait in a&e with dreadful "care"
I had to beg for pain relief for her
Dx is diverticular sepsis
Surgical registrar was very blunt (thank goodness mum was out of it) and told me of her bowel perforates they won't operate due to her other comorbidities
My siblings are being as helpful as ever
Brother can't possibly fund an hour to visit
Sister couldn't take over from me for a couple of hours on a&e as she was "ill"
🙄
Time for a Frank talk with them I think...

Oh dear @ChiswickFlo - that's horrible, sending lots of moral support.

When FiL had sepsis once they'd diagnosed it was amazing how fast the meds turned things around so fingers crossed that's the same for your mum.

And yes, definitely time for some blunt words with siblings.