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.

I would have thought being elderly and having a pacemaker were not unusual characteristics of someone requiring a cataract op, so that sounds very frustrating indeed @MissMarplesNiece. But isn’t the cataract operation done while the patient is awake? Both parents and my grandma had them done. As far as I can recall, all said it was over and done really quickly, they just felt a bit of fiddling and tugging around the eye. I can’t see why having a pacemaker would be a problem for this but then I’m not a medic…

My nan used to love knitting but she's not doing it anymore - I don't know why not because it gives her alot of pleasure. She also loves her TV but she's not even putting that on much anymore. Today was bad. I feel close to breaking down to be honest.

Asking if I can pull up a seat with my slightly stale crunch cream biscuits

Been reading the thread(s) and so much resonates. Currently grappling with parents in their late 70’s who are varyingly quite ill, with mum currently in hospital due to terminal cancer complications and other complex underlying illness and dad struggling with various heart issues (i’m sure my mum lurks on here so not going into too much detail)

Last three weeks have been awful (last few months haven’t been great either) with emergency A&E admissions for both. we have a good palliative care team and their local hospital is ok, but fml, me and siblings are at band end trying to hold together and keep them
functional and it’s so bloody hard. I suspect Dad is on verge of a carer breakdown but refuses to get help / go to GP and we can’t make him.

Every thing we suggest past or present to help has been met with a no or slidey eyes (aka won’t commit = big fat no) which means something then becomes an emergency and then it’s a huge ballache to get it done asap as there’s no lead time - extra caters, mobility aids etc

Am currently being a grumpy bastard switching between resentment and anger (whilst trying not to show it - badly) as it’s so all bloody consuming

Apologies for ramble, it’s carthatic tho 😉

Welcome @LittleMy77 You'll find a heap of support and understanding here.

Currently in the trenches so can't do long post sorry x

Hi Little

if your biscuits have gone stale, you clearly need people to help you eat nice fresh ones in future!

have a hug if you want one. When my dad had cancer, mum would have knocked herself out caring for him. It is very hard.

I was wondering how MintyCedric is doing, if you're lurking, hello!

@Nodancingshoes - sorry to read today was a bad day. Sometimes it seems that in trying to make our "olds" have good days we end up having bad days 🙁

The hospital - Optigra to name names - told me they had no emergency facilities should my DM need them during the procedure & therefore she'd have to have the procedure done in an NHS hospital.

Good grief.
Would they be incapable of dialling 999 if for some unfathomable reason, the cataract procedure caused her pacemaker to fail?

Oh I see
but really that should have been caught before the referral even happened.

Nodancing is it the general neediness that's doing your head in?

That's awful they left it so late to tell you. I've had surgery as an NHS patient at a private hospital and it was made clear a long time in advance it was day surgery only (so anyone possibly needing an overnight stay had to go to the NHS hospital) and they had no emergency facilities (which essentially means intensive care beds), then they went through it again at the pre-op check and again on the day itself!

But if you were refusing to operate on the basis of lack of emergency facilities, how would they justify any surgery being performed at private hospitals? Whether paid for privately or by the nhs?

I suspect it’s a matter of risk and capacity. So easy healthy 40 something has a 1% risk of complication, 80 something with pacemaker has a 10% risk (or whatever) and they go on that basis.

Risk assessment - so they won't take anyone above a certain level of risk (which is why it seems so daft in this case with the cataract op/pacemaker) but that clears all the straightforward cases out the way reducing the backlog at the NHS hospital.

And not all private hospitals have the same facilities. Bigger ones will be able to provide more care. Some are private wings attached to an NHS hospital. The one I went to was tiny, strictly day surgery only (not staffed overnight) and fairly new.

@EmmaEmerald
I go in each time forcing a cheery greeting and she just responds with how awful her life is, how lonely she is and how she wishes she was dead. I get it but it's absolutely draining. I'm dealing with a teenager struggling with severe OCD on one hand and then dealing with a very depressed grandmother on the other plus a full time job. It all feels too much but I can't walk away from her - she's done too much for me. When I lost my parents, her and my grandad took over this role. I don't want to resent her but I do and it feels awful.

Back again. I'm so sorry for all those who are going through a tough time with parents and grandparents.

We're now on day 30 of dad being in hospital though apparently he is optimised for discharge. The hospital requested 4 daily care visits with 2 people but we have made the decision that he'll need to go into a care home.

Mum did not cope well with the news and there was a full on screaming match between her, my sister & BIL which DH and I witnessed. Thankfully once she'd calmed down we could explain it's best for both of them. I think after all these years she's frightened of being on her own.

Dad had said previously that he didn't want to go into care (though he did have a recent respite stay) and the hospital states he still has mental capacity which we're disputing. Most days he doesn't even recognise who we are any more, he thought his brother was visiting when it was his nephew. He doesn't even he know where he is now and when asked what he wanted to do next he just said - stay here.

He can't walk any more, can't feed himself, can barely communicate and is incontinent. I hate Parkinson's and what it's done to my dad.

@Nodancingshoes I totally understand what about your Grandma and what she's saying about being lonely etc. My DM is the same and I know how exhausting and upsetting it is. I'm afraid I have no advice on how to deal with it.

Nodancingshoes
My mum did something similar when my father died, or a few months after.

She was more mobile back then so I sat her down and said "I understand that's how you feel, but you make me ill talking this way, can you tell someone else or keep it to yourself please".

She took it on board and stopped. Is it worth a try or does your nan lack the cognitive ability for that?

WhathaveIfound hugs for you if wanted.

@Nodancingshoes my mum is similar. She's not interested in any conversations about what people are doing just talking about how miserable she is and how lonely despite having a much busier social life and seeing far more people that I do now I work from home. And if I do steer it to something nice like DS1 has just come back from holiday it's straight into "woe is me I'll never have another holiday. I had wonderful holidays with your dad. X and I were looking at going on a cruise bit she's just been diagnosed with cancer and is waiting to find out what the treatment is". I've been getting the story about her best friend just being diagnosed for 18 months and her friend had actually been clear for over 10 years at the point it started.
It's hard not to leave any conversation totally depressed.

Gosh, I’m so lucky with my Dad. When I come in, he always responds with a big smile (actually does the same with many of the carers and nurses, no wonder they like him).

@LittleMy77 Unless you actually like stale biscuits, I’ll add them to the tin in the Good Daughters’ Room (no-one seems to go in there), and help yourself to the ones in the Bad Daughters’ Room - they get eaten too quickly to go stale.

Thanks everyone - she has full capacity and I have told her how much it upsets me which works for a little while but she's soon back to saying it... I've never minded visiting and helping her before but it is soul destroying at the moment.

@countrygirl99 same. All conversations are steered back to her medical conditions.
@WhatHaveIFound that sounds so hard :(
@MereDintofPandiculation I wish nan was like your dad - bless him. She says she likes the carers but she is the same with them as with me.

That's exactly what I thought

As pp said, it's a risk assessment. A 60 year old with no health problems would have been accepted, I reckon.

Going back to the cataract procedure - I was too shocked and annoyed to think of questions to ask them. The hospital concerned were meant to have written to DM's cardiology consultant after a telephone pre-preop she had, and then I had taken DM for a preop where no questions were asked about her heart condition/pacemaker. I was so disappointed for DM. I can only assume - PP mentioned this - that private hospital's make a risk assessment and if it's above a certain level then they won't take the patient on. But, I don't understand why this wasn't done at pre-preop stage instead of us then waiting 3 months and being turned away.

From a purely selfish pov, getting DM ready while quelling her terrible anxiety which leads her to having toddler like tantrums, getting her in the car then out the car at the other end etc requires such a mammoth effort that it's not something I want to do for no good reason.

I hear your pain at the effort getting DM ready @MissMarplesNiece. I factor in 30 minutes in advance of a pick up time. She will either be ready 3 hours early and phoning to see where I am or there’ll be panicking and tantrums or she’ll flatly refuse.

That’s infuriating about the cataract op. Please complain.

Hi everyone, can I just vent for a second, I am having a really difficult day, and feeling very down. I canceled my holiday for my birthday because, just too much is going on. My mom was diagnosed with C. difficile, we don’t know what it is, but the antibiotics aren’t working, and she is in a lot of pain. I really wish I could go and do some thing, nothing is working and she has now had diarrhea, and I mean constant, diarrhea, stomach pain, and you name it for 65 days. I’m trying to look and see what care options? There are for her in the area, but she is also , one of these people who gets upset when she sees me upset. And right now, I’m upset and I’m trying to hide it.

also, I don’t have young children, but I do have younger friends, or people who work for me that are in their early 20s, who just think they know it but they don’t and they don’t have the life experience yet to be able to understand what having an elderly parent who is going through a really tough time is like. One of them said to me just casually. Oh well, I run away from the place where I live, because I am still working and still trying to run my organization, and we are running a project in September. I own my own home, which my mom had also really wanted me to have, and loved, and has not been able to visit because she has been too sick . And these young people think you can just stay in a good mood, and everything will go away. Again, I know they just can’t understand, but I was trying to explain, first of all what, owning a home means, and the big responsibilities, and the bills, and the repairs, and everything else that come with it. and I was just trying to explain what is like taking care of elderly parents, who can be in really bad moods, really upset, in pain, it’s painful to be around and smiling just doesn’t make it better sometimes.