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.

@EmmaEmerald it is my S in law, whom
i love to bits, but she is so kind to those she knows and loves that is how she thinks, she went through this with her father in village with poor transport and it was her sister who insisted they get advice and some tests when their father was showing signs of dementia and other health issues. She didn’t want him upset at being told he was tool
old to drive.

I told her it isn’t just about my father, but the accident he might cause with others. It is also awkward because my parents ask when my children might visit, but I won’t send them until dads car is gone. But my kids don’t have cars and one doesn’t drive - so a visit isn’t going to happen. 🙁. My father doesn’t have dementia or signs atm but tbh he has never been a good driver, he just doesn’t read the road etc. He took 5 attempts to pass his test in his 20s - that says it all I think.

We went through this with FIL. Any suggestion that he shouldn't be driving just led to absolute rages. After I followed him one day I contacted DVLC but as he didn't have a condition that required him to stop driving that was a dead end. But he had lost the ability to judge speed and distance and he wandered all over the road. In the end he had an accident that thankfully didn't involve anyone else but he wrote off his car and the police were involved as they had to close the road for a while. They wrote to him to say they wouldn't prosecuted more dangerous driving if he had a full medical. He sent back his licence the day he got the letter. Up to that point his sister in law had been planning to give him money towards another car.

My mother's lack of insight into her driving skills was a major cause of stress for me that last year. I refused to put petrol in the car because that's part of driving and if you can't fill it up then you shouldn't be driving. she'd filled up at the same pump for twenty years but they went to pay at pump and she couldn't manage the change of finding another petrol station.

She was adamant that she was perfectly fine to drive even though she couldn't recognise the butter in the fridge and had to pull everything out and read the labels. That was different, she'd be fine recognising a cyclist at a junction. Finally, winter came and we agreed that she'd take the car off the road for the winter. We agreed that she might as well get the insurance back, I let her deal with the tax, the MOT and the renewal of her license and of course she didn't do any of them. I put a big sign on the steering wheel to say that it was off the road for the winter and had no tax or MOT and was illegal to drive, after that I breathed a sigh of relief.

She didn't go anywhere other than to the library, it was the freedom that she could if she wanted to.

It’s hard isn’t it. My father doesn’t have dementia or any of the listed health conditions, he is and really always has been a poor driver but is getting worse - he is beginning to forget things, get names wrong and couldn’t remember the sequence of numbers of his PIN, he shuffles more when he walks but would still beat many at The Chaser, paints, writes and goes for a daily walk. He can email but refuses to stick with using a smart phone. No GP would have any reason to say no to DVLA …. For years a good friend of my parents owned a garage so all car work was Mates rates, she has recently sold up and just retired in her 70s - she is a fab women, running a garage full of panel beaters and mechanics for years. Maybe the full costs will make him think twice / DF is proud of knowing nothing about cars and loud about his dislike for J Clarkson claiming he encourages youngsters to speed and kill people. We gave up arguing against that years ago.

I'm aghast at what some of us are having to cope with.

I now understand why there's people in care homes and hospitals with no visitors.

Anyone can report a dangerous driver to the DVLA and they will make them have a driving assessment.
The DVLA do not tell the driver who reported them.
I reported a 96 year old woman (who had backed her car into mine on her driveway, amongst other transgressions on the road).
She actually ran someone over the day before her assessment, and the police took her keys away.
It's nonsense for people to bleat about people's independence, when they could kill someone.

They didn't make FIL take an assessment. They just wrote to him and asked if he had any of a list of conditions. He wrote back and said no and that was it.

@TheShellBeach i do agree and I think the system likely needs an overhaul and I can also see that GPS can’t be the person to have responsibility. My mother gave up aged 81 up because she knew she wasn’t up to driving, but has none of the conditions. My 92 year old aunt was driving and had an accident the details of which have never been shared, the airbag blue up as it should but she was so small it appears to have given her a head injury - she died two weeks later. She was driving to Tesco. I know about the DVLA reporting and am looking into it.

we have better news with mother in law in terms of her on going care - keeping fingers crossed until confirmed. Also found council online chat person really helpful about council tax. And help the aged rang to ask if MiL was still looking for a cleaner. I said no longer needed, it was a 10 week wait for a slot, but they were honest about how popular it was. So someone will get that call instead. 😁

Typos 😮

Similar happened with one of mum's neighbours, she was furious. I think the report was for driving too slowly.

June actually, airbag injury is something all us smaller folk should be aware of, I never had a car with an airbag but I think the advice for me was to have a child size one.

i've had an update with my doctor, there will be medicine changes which is going to be tough but hopefully worth it. It also means I can effectively report another six weeks off to mum.

then I will look at moving back to my old home, depending on whether the sale goes through, but it doesn't look like it will.

what a mess. I don't think my brain has been working the last five years. If any lurkers are thinking to care for parents, I'm a cautionary tale. I never imagined mum would resist outside help after broken bones, strokes etc. tbh I thought a second stroke would automatically mean "care home".

How I feel for you all (I mean that, I'm not in any way being sarcastic).

Something had been going wrong with my mum's "eye -to-brain signal" for a while; we had quite a row when we'd walked along a headland to a local beauty spot then she was adamant that this wasn't the beauty spot because there was a white fence "over there" - no, those are sand dunes and we ARE at the right spot! I was pretty worried about her driving - it's ok for folk to say that they don't go very far, only to the local shops etc, but that still means encountering pedestrians, junctions etc.

Then she developed wet macular degeneration but was adamant that she was still OK to drive as the hospital hadn't told her otherwise. Then she broke her wrist, and that was the best thing as she had to lay her car up whilst recuperating from that. Roll forward several months of not driving because of her wrist and she had decided herself that she didn't feel up to driving any more. She sold the car to the local garage and I heaved a mighty sigh of relief.

She complains about how much more difficult life is without a car, but in fact she lives within walking distance of good local shops, the vets, the GP, the optician, and for longer trips there's a bus stop actually outside her house (although she likes to walk back from her hospital trips - 2.5 miles, or longer if she takes the scenic route!

My mil was the same , no diagnosed dementia but drove into a car in a shops car park as she thought she was braking but accelerated into the opposite parked car. Another time she ended up driving up the A14 about 50 miles past her turn off and just kept going because she didn't know what to do or where she should get off.

@EmmaEmerald good luck. Maybe it will go through, time for you to have some good luck. Airbags are not designed for pregnant women either - basically designed for standard sized man! DH and I will downsize in next few years and my request is near great transport. We have it now and I can’t imagine living in the sort of village my parents do - I grew up there and it is lovely but not without a car🙁.

JuneDay the irony is, I now wonder if it's better for me if it doesn't go through. I'm not in a fit state to make a decision yet. I'm just keeping quiet. To some extent, the cards will fall where they may.

I could pull out tomorrow if I wanted of course but I don't know what's best atm. More information should come to light soon that will help me decide.

not being cryptic, just a very complicated situation.

MIL got carted off to hospital for a scan on a swollen leg. She gets it a lot and it's never a clot. It was a same day thing so too late to arrange for a family member to go with her so a member of staff had to accompany her at a cost. I pointed out that if she was a horse the vet would have brought a portable scanner and seeing as the GP has already been out 3 or 4 times for the same thing I wondered why they don't do that for people.

She complains about how much more difficult life is without a car, but in fact she lives within walking distance of good local shops, the vets, the GP, the optician, and for longer trips there's a bus stop actually outside her house There’s more to life than shopping and medical appointments! Not a reason to continue driving after losing capability, but don’t underestimate the impact. We have built our society on the basis that everyone has access to a car.

My mil was the same , no diagnosed dementia but drove into a car in a shops car park as she thought she was braking but accelerated into the opposite parked car I read somewhere that that was often someone learning and driving a manual, then switching to an automatic in later life. In times of stress, manual reflexes kick in.

@countrygirl99 we all know the NHS needs a constant shake up and review. It feels to me that the realisation that so many patients are elderly, with dementia, maybe in care homes or with carers should be reviewed with more training and better systems. Especially around things like consent. 50 years ago many elderly with multiple health issues wouldn’t have left hospital but instead be in a nursing unit. I know we had far from unusual issue of being told MiL had capacity when it was clear she didn’t. Sending her home cost social services and NHS because of more 999 calls, GP house calls, district nurse, OT and physio and dementia services nurse calls to me. All before she was put into the respite nursing care she should have had at the start. I don’t know how much these things will have cost but she got worse faster than expected and I like many of you, was on the verge of asking for help from the GP because of the stress, frustration and worry. I agree she should not be paying for her transport and care to a necessary appointment, she doesn’t choose to need a hospital visit - if she was in hospital rehab the transport of free.

It is ridiculous. What happens when people have no money and no family to accompany them? But it just seems ridiculous that she had to go to hospital at all when portable scanners are really good now. Even if they had to send the images for review. I told DH that next time he should suggest they get a horse vet out instead. Even 15 years ago my son's pony was scanned at the yard.

I would imagine it's because if they found a clot, they'd want her to be set up for various clot busting meds via IV.

though I can see that if you find it, pre-warning the hospital the ambulance crew are en route with a patient in need of that, would make more sense.

My DM's surgery doesn't even do home visits. We can book mobile everything else - eyetest, chiropodist, hairdresser, but there's no one who can come from the GP surgery even to do a blood test. This week DM went to surgery for routine appointment with diabetic nurse who then said she thought DM needed to see a GP & booked an appointment for following day.

I just wish they'd appreciate the difficulty of getting a very immobile person into a car & out again at the other end, coupled with a tiny carpark which means I have to park 100 yards down the road and push DM uphill to the surgery.

Even more annoying was GP saying nothing wrong with DM's leg so it was a waste of time for all of us.

Cheaper and more efficient for them (the surgery that is, not the elderly person!) as they can fit many more appointments in per day at the surgery or hospital than they could if having to drive to several places - especially if those places are miles apart. I get the same with my GP - they send me to an in person appointment the far side of the city as that's where they have GP availability that day and that's what's most cost effective for them, even though from my POV it's more time off work and needs a taxi rather than a short walk.

Whereas the vet charges you for the scan so ensures cost of equipment and staff time is covered to travel to the horse.

I have a relative who's a prescribing nurse. She spends mornings in the GP surgery seeing patients but then in the afternoon goes out in the community to visit housebound patients. That sounds like quite a good model to follow. I wish DM lived in that surgery's catchment area.

Not sure about cheaper for the NHS as hospital transport is provided each way as she's confined to a wheelchair. The GP has been out about 4 times in the last 3weeks and goodness knows how many times over the years. It's been an ongoing issue since she had her stroke over 8 1/2 years ago and always ends up with them tweaking diuretics. There must be loads of elderly patients with similar issues as my dad was the same for his last couple of years.

I must say that MIL's surgery was very good, and she had several home visits from her GP and other staff while she was still ill at home, even though it wasn't her ability to get to the practice that was in question. I know she still had some appointments in the surgery, because I took her to some of them myself when it wasn't safe for FIL to be in a car with her.
She's in a poor way now, on soft foods only because her ability to swallow is deteriorating, and in pain from various falls etc. She still has some speech, even if she doesn't make a lot of sense outside her range of stock phrases. We've reduced our own visiting frequency to two or three times a week. It's very rare that she's actually pleased to see us. Sometimes she's distressed that her son is in this awful place*, and he needs to get out and save himself, but mostly he's a useless sod who can bugger straight off and stop wasting her time. Her daughter gets the same treatment.

*The staff are lovely, and her room is beautiful, with an en suite and glorious views. She always loved the view from the back of her own house towards fields and woods. Sadly the panorama of fields and gentle rolling hills does nothing for her now.

Talking of tweeking diuretics - I'm expecting a call this afternoon from DM's GP about her kidney function. She already takes the lowest dose of diuretic but has a bit of water retention in her legs. GP can't increase diuretics because of her poor kidney function - due partly, I'm sure, because she just refuses to drink enough because she can't get to the toilet on time when she needs to wee.

I don't know what we can do to get her to drink more. Dr's have explained to her several times how drinking more actually encourages your bladder to stretch whereas not drinking enough means urine is very concentrated and irritates bladder making you wee more. But, as in all things, DM knows best and doesn't take their advice - same as not putting her feet up or doing toe & heel tapping exercise.

I suppose I could say "be it on your own head", but it doesn't work like that and I'll be sitting here worrying about it for hours.