Cockroach cafe 🪳 Summer 2023 🪳

[MereDintofPandiculation]

Welcome! I’ve done a really good clean of the place overnight, and brought in sweet peas, and raspberries from the garden to go with the scones and clotted cream.

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.

[IthinkIsawahairbrushbackthere]

It's looking lovely in here. Thank you for being the hostess with the mostess as my DM would say. I knew DH was the one for me when his mum served up fresh raspberries with muesli for breakfast!

[Knotaknitter]

Thank you for pulling the furniture out and cleaning under and behind, it's a rare thing when I do it.

I'm here to keep up with the people who supported me when I was at breaking point. I visit MIL nearly every week but I have no responsibility for her and no worry either. Yet again she was sitting in wet clothes when I visited, if it were down to me I'd move her but it isn't. She's settled and as happy as she has ever been so I suppose that's something.

I drove past my parent's former house last week, I sold it at the end of March. It looked lovely, they'd replaced the windows, replaced the flat roof on the outbuilding with a tiled pitched roof and they had the garden waste bin half way up the path showing that gardening was in progress. The house looked cared for and I was glad that it was back to being a family home and not that great lump of responsibility I'd been carrying for years.

I could just eat a scone but it's a bit late to be making them now.

[Nodancingshoes]

Evening all!
I feel like I've been abit mean to my nan today. I've had a hard weekend with teenagers and other worries. I walked on to be greeted by another barrage of doom and despair and I'm afraid I didn't cope with it well. I'm not sure she really noticed to be honest but I feel bad about it now. She is now having up to 2 visits a day from family members as well as the carer but apparently she only wants me... the weight of that feels heavy at the moment 😔

[Muddlinalong]

Evening all! It’s good to see a bit of colour in the summer air to start us off.

I spent today battling with my parents ancient lawnmower and trying to find things in the shed that looks like I feel after a bad week! The lawnmower stopped working when the wire suddenly sparked and split, but I hadn’t cut it?! Says a lot about the state of the house and upkeep in general. I used it as a chance to have a bit of a clear out of the shed and start the suggestion of someone to help with the larger garden jobs. I’m trying to persuade them to get a cleaner as well. The noises in reply are more positive than a few weeks ago so I can live in hope we might get somewhere.

Does 1 step forward, 3 steps back sound familiar to anyone else?

[DahliaMacNamara]

You big fancypants, @MereDintofPandiculation : you've been dusting around the light fittings and everything.
It's our 'day off' today. Got back in an hour ago and I can see there's a missed call from FIL, but elected not to call him back. Didn't even mention it to DH. There'll be another one if it's really important. So. A scone, you say?

[MereDintofPandiculation]

@IthinkIsawahairbrushbackthere

It's looking lovely in here. Thank you for being the hostess with the mostess as my DM would say. I knew DH was the one for me when his mum served up fresh raspberries with muesli for breakfast!

Are you my DIL? That's what we're having tomorrow.

[MereDintofPandiculation]

Welcome, everybody, good to see you all.

@Nodancingshoes don't feel bad. You're doing your best. No-one can expect perfection. Be as nice to yourself as you would be to a friend who was in a similar situation.

@Muddlinalong You're doing better than me. I never got near positive noises.

[TheShellBeach]

I never got near positive noises either.

[4catsaremylife]

Can I join you?
I had to enlist my adult DS to find out how to get my dad's best friend's phone number off the blocked caller list.
I asked dad how it happened and he said "well I just push random buttons these days" - amusing but sad too. My lovely dad studied electronics and worked in the field all his working life, and thanks to dementia now struggles to work his TV or telephone

[SunshineGlamourIfOnly]

Morning all. Thank you for our new thread and how nice to 'see' everyone.

My personal breakthrough is recognising that mum's irritability and occasional angry outbursts are borne out of fear. She has, I think, started to recognise her own mental decline and the strategies she's previously used are not always failsafe.

My siblings, who see her less than I do, and her carers for whom she is always on her best behaviour, are seeing and acknowledging it too now. I am finding this helpful, as I was beginning to feel that it might be me that was the one getting confused. It felt like I was shouting into the wind, trying to get those around me to listen.

I doubt very much she'll acknowledge it, but it's helping me realise that these days she really can't help it. As yet there's no chance that she would allow us to help her get diagnosed, but in this moment (aware always subject to change) I'm feeling more able to work with her and feel slightly less ruffled by it all.

Grateful as always to have this thread!

[InternallyScreaming]

Sending hugs to you all.
I'm scared to turn my phone on as yesterday everything was so awful
I don't want to hear the sarcasm and negative comments today.

[MereDintofPandiculation]

@4catsaremylife

Can I join you?
I had to enlist my adult DS to find out how to get my dad's best friend's phone number off the blocked caller list.
I asked dad how it happened and he said "well I just push random buttons these days" - amusing but sad too. My lovely dad studied electronics and worked in the field all his working life, and thanks to dementia now struggles to work his TV or telephone

My dad too. Top research scientist, designed and installed his own hot air central heating system. All that knowledge and capacity for rational thought vanished.

[funnelfan]

@InternallyScreaming can you put your phone on silent and/or mute conversations from key people? I found doing that reduced my stress enormously as my phone wasn’t pinging every few minutes, and I could then wait until I felt up to it before reading messages or listening to voice mails.

I’m at my mums today, third appointment in a series to get a new set of false teeth. Heaven knows what happened to her old ones that she lost. I presume scrunched up in a tissue and binned. On the one hand she always says how grateful she is for everything I do. On the other, she’s quite blasé about me rearranging my work to come up during the week with my laptop (I stay overnight) and I got greeted with “I’m not sure I can be bothered to go to the dentist today’. Aaaargh.

i got a new WFH job earlier in the year and I really landed on my feet with an exceptionally understanding boss and a department culture that isn’t rigidly orientated around 9-5. I’ve no idea how I’d manage if I was in a job that was fixed hours and me being physically present. I’d have had to go part time or even resign.

[venusandmars]

It's the never-ending-ness of it that I find draining. For the past 3 years we've been hoping that 'the next phase' of care woud ease the load on family, but each stage - from cleaning support, meals on wheels, carers, befirenders, through 24 live in care - each stage just seems to bring a different set of challenges, and different ways in which PILs continued to call on us for support. Now, even though PILs are both in an excellent nursing home, there are multiple phone calls and issues to resolve (FIL wandering in the night and waking MIL up). Our family what's app has never been busier!

On top of that their house has been sold so there is all the business of clearing the house.

Maybe next month will be quieter...

[StopGo]

Mother phoned at 3.30am to demand new slippers. Not a please, thank or sorry passed her lips.

[InternallyScreaming]

Thank you @funnelfan but then they ring the house phone , my husband and children and their partners, repeatedly, literally
It's fucking relentless

[SheilaFentiman]

thanks

[GrunkleStan]

@MereDintofPandiculation

My dad too. Top research scientist, designed and installed his own hot air central heating system. All that knowledge and capacity for rational thought vanished.

I here you ladies.

Mine too.

Electrical design engineer. All gone.

Dementia exacerbated by the pandemic and then killed by covid.

[4catsaremylife]

@GrunkleStan

I here you ladies.

Mine too.

Electrical design engineer. All gone.

Dementia exacerbated by the pandemic and then killed by covid.

My mum died of breast cancer around 18 months ago so she shielded me from most of it, but since she died he's got so much worse.

[BestIsWest]

@MereDintofPandiculation Many thanks for new thread. I’ve brought ginger nuts.

@funnelfan an understanding boss and good working culture makes so much difference. I honest don’t know how I’d have coped without that the last 5 years. My boss was caring for his 99 year old mum at home so he totally got it ( he was amazing, I don’t know how he did it tbh).

[MissMarplesNiece]

I'm so glad this thread is here - yes because of the scones and raspberries which are always welcome - but also because its so good to have a group of people who understand how difficult it all is.

I'm bracing myself for the anguished, sobbing phone calls this afternoon. I told DM I'd go see her today but I've had some kind of bug since Friday and last night with a temp of 38.6 and not being able to stand or walk, I called 111. I want to stay home & sip ginger tea. I know that I'll get the calls - like you @Nodancingshoesmy DM tells me she only wants me and she puts an awful lot of pressure on me. I find it so difficult.

@InternallyScreaming if I turn my phone off to get a bit of respite other family members get her calls catastrophising what could have happened to me, am I in hospital, have I had a car crash & am lying dead somewhere. It's so wearing.

[Stringbean70]

@InternallyScreaming my mum does this too - if I don’t pick up, she then rings my kids repeatedly at 5am/when in school lessons/Uni lectures. Drives us crazy.

[funnelfan]

@BestIsWest it’s clear to me that one of the key factors of the Great Resignation/early retirement for people in their 50s is people with caring responsibilities who have either already paid off their mortgage or are at least in a position where a partner is still working. And for whom it’s just too hard to keep working and also fulfill a caring role. Jobs/employers such as ours are like hens teeth.

Even so, there are days when I’d happily pack it all in and give up all luxuries just to have some time back. However, I know long term it’s much better for my mental health (and pension!) to keep working, so I soldier on.

[MereDintofPandiculation]

I’ve brought ginger nuts. Lovely! Nothing like gingernuts for dunking in coffee!

However, I know long term it’s much better for my mental health (and pension!) to keep working, so I soldier on. I'm in the lucky position of being retired. But I know that it will be easier for me to maintain existing social relationships than to make new ones in my 80s when I'm free of parental caring responsibilities, so I keep going with my social circle and my voluntary work.

I'm very fortunate that, despite retiring early to nurse his wife, my father is grateful for everything I do (and has a hugely inflated view of the value of my voluntary work). It doesn't make the demands any less, but at least I get thanks. I feel for all those of you who are soldiering on and getting norhing but moans and grumbles.

My father used to phone me, I'd pick up, he'd ask me if it was me, if I could hear him, then there'd be a silence as he stopped holding the phone properly, until the line went dead. And repeat. Up to a dozen times over the next half hour or so. Fortunately he can no longing manage his phone - so something to lok forward to all those of you with telephoning parents.

[InternallyScreaming]

@MissMarplesNiece , it's so hard isn't it. I used to then get phone calls from tgeir friends telling me what I had to do. Funnily enough they have backed right off and are limiting contact with them which is so sad but understandable