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.

becomes ‘pads’ as the home calls them That’s a lot kinder than calling them “nappies”.

Today she said she might be ready for a mobile phone contract, she's on PAYG and I've only been asking her to get one for about 10 years now? I like giffgaff “recurring goody bags”, eg unlimited calls and 2Gb data for £5 a month - it’s like a contract except you can change it or cancel it at the end of the month. I use PAYG for Dad but I have to remember to spend some money every 6 months - making a call is a bit beyond him but he likes the security. His £10 credit will last about 20 years at this rate.

I don't think I'd visit someone who didn't recognise me. The main reason to visit, whether they recognise you or not, is to make sure they’re being cared for OK and remind the home that you’re keeping an eye on them.

@EmmaEmerald I think Mum recognises me as someone she knows but doesn't always realise I'm her daughter.
I visit to support my Dad who visits twice a week and to make sure all is as well as it can be.

My mother didn't know who I was for the last year of her life but she was always pleased to see me and that was good enough. MIL doesn't know who I am and usually can't wait for me to leave. I still visit because there have been a couple of times where action needed to be taken and it could be months until she has another visitor through the door. It's hard getting a conversation started because as far as she's concerned I am a stranger and some weeks I last five minutes before she's done with me. As a result I've dropped visiting to every other week. It is a shame because mum lost her language and MIL still has it but doesn't want to talk to me.

This week she was chatty and thanked me for coming and if it was like that all the time I would be fine with going every week. On my next visit I'm taking tissues, a battery for her clock and a particular fizzy pop, none of which she'd be having if I didn't go in.

Yes, I used to visit a neighbour who forgot who I was but just liked a visit, so I visited.

Mere good point re keeping an eye, shows how poorly my brain is working.

I guess I think of visits as being nearly daily as that's what I did with mum the first time she was in respite.

When I was looking at homes for dad, - the hospital hadn't yet admitted he was dying so .i had to look - I just assumed I'd visit daily. Obviously after this breakdown I'd think again.

every time my folks have been in hospital I've been there daily. When dad was in intensive care, I was allowed in any time, so I'd go to work, eat a sandwich en route after and just sit by the bed till about 11. Dunno how I did it.

with mum, I had a lot of flexibility with work so could manage the more limited visiting hours.

when you look back on all the tiring hours involved, it's pretty shocking for all of us I expect?

DM has been in hospital a couple of times over the last year or so and I've gone to see her everyday - usually for 3 or 4 hours at a time. It exhausted me - I don't feel I ever recover, I just keep on getting a bit more exhausted everytime. Once I was an hour late and she was most unpleasant in the way she spoke to me. Another time I didn't go at usual time because I was waiting for important phone call and she phoned me to say I was "the worst child in Christendom" among other things. I laugh now but at the time I was quite upset.

I was in hospital at a time when no visitors were allowed because of covid. Tbh it was bliss - such peace and quiet. I could do with another week of it, lol.

MissMarplesniece "It exhausted me - I don't feel I ever recover, I just keep on getting a bit more exhausted everytime"

Exactly. My now ex was surprised when I said I regretted spending so much time at dad's bedside when he was dying. That's not a criticism of dad. It's just it took so much out of me and some days he was confused and didn't realise I was there. Outside of intensive care, the nurses liked me being around because I could feed him and that was a job off their list. That bit I'm glad I did, because it's important to me that he felt looked after by a loved one, though the nurses were great.

But by the time he was off food, I think a daily visit wasn't necessary and took an awful lot out of me. I haven't actually read The Body Keeps The Score, but I imagine it's like that.

Also I couldn't have known it would take so long. We said our goodbyes about ten weeks before he died, poor soul.

With mum, decline could go on for years so I have to set different boundaries.

We are lucky that we do love each other and we do hold hands in hospital, (as cuddling is frowned upon, bringing germs into the bed etc). we had a nice cuddle on the sofa today before going to the optician, so the love is still there.

Perhaps I will appreciate mummy cuddles again when I've recovered more. I do realise I am lucky to have them. She'd certainly never tell me off for needing to be elsewhere. I am sorry your mum does that.

Re the incontinence, I’m not criticising the staff. Many/most are doing a hard job that doesn’t pay well in homes that are under resourced and under staffed. To prevent the incontinence, I have to take my MiL to the toilet every 2 hours. Now, in a care home with 50 residents, that’d be all the staff do to stay on top of it. Hence, the use of pads is understandable. Just, no easy solution. Getting old is bad enough. Dementia is so crap.

@EmmaEmerald my dad doesn’t know me now, it’s hard

Sorry, hugs to you if wanted xx

Thank you, @EmmaEmerald

she phoned me to say I was "the worst child in Christendom" When I was a teenager, my Mum told me she was “ashamed to be my mother”. Doesn’t worry me now, but I’ve not forgotten it! Mothers can say dreadful things. They may mean them at the time, but it isn’t an accurate reflection of how they see you most of the time.

It’s when you have an elder in hospital that you realise that visitors aren’t there to entertain the patient, they’re there to work. Help with feeding, laundry, etc. Makes me even more furious with the entire multi-adult family at the bed opposite, laughing and shouting as if they were the only occupants of the entire ward.

I have to take my MiL to the toilet every 2 hours I think I’d use pads if I needed the toilet every two hours

MIL can come out with awful things about everyone, and is especially vicious to FIL, but it somehow seems more savage when she lays into her kind, devoted, hardworking children. I suppose it might feel less hurtful if there hadn't been faint foreshadowings of this kind of outburst in the past. So when the staff try to soothe the family with 'It's just the dementia talking', it doesn't altogether ring true.

My auntie died with dementia in 2019 (it was actually a stomach ulcer haemorrhage that finished her off) but in the later stages she always recognised me and was pleased to see me. By then she was bedbound, incontinent, screaming for help when alone, and had lost most ability to chew and didn’t know what to do with food, so I’m glad the ulcer intervened. But she did know me. I wish I had spent more time with her (she used to sleep a lot) but at the time I was working 4 days a week and she was a 40 mile round trip away, so it was once a week. Leaving was always awful.
Re pp who talked about continuing treatment too long, she had bronchitis at her last Christmas in 2018 and was treated in hospital with antibiotics and oxygen. She was then discharged to a council care home where I think most of her remaining 4 months were miserable. I wish they had let her go, but I wasn’t next of kin (my mother is) and had no say, and my auntie hadn’t made any instruction (not even a will).

Was supposed to help Mum look at new garden sheds today, but Dad phoned this morning to say she didn’t get to sleep til 6am so won’t be going out today. Her sleep is badly disordered, she is practically nocturnal. Not unusual for me to arrive at 1 or 2 on to visit and she’s having breakfast.
So we’ve left it til next week now, and I feel relieved.

Thanks for all the support, I feel better about mum after a few days thinking about it again. Hopefully I will be more prepared when I see her on Friday and won't be so upset by it.

With the continence issues I realise now that mum was like someone else said(@Juneday ?) a potty trained toddler. She would call to say she needed the toilet and I would drop everything to take her. Once she got to hospital and she had to wait more than a couple of minutes it was too late. Even when she
was home she would still have accidents but once she went to the home she was in pads straight away.

Sometimes she knows me, sometimes she doesn't. Sometimes she thinks I am my best friend! Very often she ignores me completely and only wants to talk to my cousin but I visit every week because I need to see for myself that she is ok.

@IthinkIsawahairbrushbackthere and all others, it is great that you are visiting regardless. MiL looked after her two eldest grandchildren every summer for weeks, took them on outings, in taxis and other treats despite not being a wealthy women. It meant their parents didn’t have to take all their holidays in school holidays. Despite this one of those 40 year old grandchildren hasn’t visited her once, not in hospital or at home or at care home. (Actually not seen her for 6 years or more). The other did visit in hospital but not since, 4 months. They could both do the journey in under 2 hours. Their father, eldest son, visits once every two months. If I hadn’t had an outburst of sobbing on a train 9 months ago to DH, no one would have seen MiL until her fall and time in hospital. It forces DH to tell his family to visit, I needed them to see how frail she was and what I knew to be signs of dementia. She is the only living grandparent for 4 of the grown up grandchildren.

My only grandparent, my lovely grandma, went to ‘powder her nose’ whilst eating with a cousin and was found on the floor. She passed away in seconds, no warning, no long illness. The shock took a while to get over but none of this stress and worry. She was late 80s and I found out a few days later I was pregnant with number 3, my only daughter whose middle name is after my grandma. Shame they never met, she loved babies, but so much to be thankful for.

@Juneday one of DHs brothers hasn't visited MIL since a single visit just before FILs funeral over a year ago. His children have never visited since she went into the home June last year. She would have done anything for those grandchildren and frequently took them away for weekends and other treats. They live less than 10 minutes from the care home. All the other siblings and grandchildren visit regularly despite being further away, even the one who doesn't live in the UK sees her at least once every time he comes over for even the shortest visit.

I don’t have children and occasionally get sad thinking who will visit me when I’m old to make sure I’m ok. But then I read these experiences and realise that even if I did have children, there is no guarantee that they would have thought and done as I have done for my parents.

My oldest DC is uncomfortable with visiting my mum. However he and his wife write to her regularly and send her massive Moonpig cards with photos so he stays in touch. The three who live furthest away will visit when they can and the one who lives locally visits once a month or so depending on transport/shifts. Mum has no concept of time - she is always surprised when we visit - so I don't worry too much about the kids visiting because she always thinks "they came yesterday" or in the case of my uncle who has not missed one visit to her "not seen him for years". Before she went into the home they were wonderful, visiting her for hours and she adored them - to the extent that she remembered them as her own children (didn't know who I was that week!) - and they still love her but for my oldest in particular the shadow of her that is left is just too painful.

I feel hurt on my DM's behalf about her grandchildren not visiting her when she's been in hospital - when they were children she had them to stay every school holiday, and similar to @countrygirl99 's MIL would have done anything for them. I remember DM fretting over Christmas & birthday presents, sending them money and never getting even an acknowledgement let alone a thank you card. I guess it foretold things to come.

When I mentioned the none visiting to my sister she shouted at me and told me to get out of her house. I can't remember her exact words but I remember replying "but she's their grandmother, don't they feel anything towards her?".

While I'm in the mood to rant, I'm not sure they'd be any better with my sister. 2 of her now adult children live at home and I have never seen either of them do anything in the house while DSis is out full time at work. They don't even empty the dishwasher let alone run the hoover over or peel the potatoes for dinner. They are incredibly selfish.

It's ironic that while so many of us are on here chatting about the guilt of caring for elderly family (and the reality of not being able to do everything for them), there are others who simply don't bother. I posted here originally because I worried that dh wasn't pulling his weight enough (he was in reality, but not as much as his siblings) - and I got some really great advice. He has stepped up and in the last few weeks he has been a rock for his parents and his siblings. So today, despite suffering from a monumental hangover (consequence of his friends offering their commiserations in the form of strong beer and whisky - men, huh!), he has gone again to visit his Dad.

And it is really important to remember that each of us can only do what we can do. And that it might change over time. We have different ways of recharging our own internal batteries, and we need to do that. Old age lasts a long time, and we need strategies and tactics that help us through a marathon, as well as a possible sprint finish.

My FIL still recognises his own dc, but he doesn't really know who I am - and not at all if I visit on my own without the clear context of being with his son. But he does recognise that I'm a familiar face which seems to bring him comfort. The last time I visited on my own, he said that he didn't know who I was, but we had the easy familiar banter that we always did, and when I was leaving he told me he had a photo of me in his room (he does, as part of various photo montages), so at the moment that level of recognition remains.

venusandmars "So today, despite suffering from a monumental hangover (consequence of his friends offering their commiserations in the form of strong beer and whisky - men, huh!),"

sounds like good common sense to me!

even as a child, I was glad not to have grandparents. I am so not a family person!

MiL has a friend who used to ring her 4 times or more a week, they had a bit of a falling out but made up and cut the calls down. I managed to find her address and update her and now she sends a colourful card and a rather long and often depressing letter😮. We take them to MiL and offer to read the letters but she declines so I give her a précis, trying to find the good bits 🤣. I have one waiting to take on our next visit.

I've spent the evening trying to persuade mum that she doesn't want to call the bank and cancel her direct debits for water & electric. She's convinced they should be half the £ they were when dad was alive if not less 🤷‍♀️. Totally ignoring standing charges and 20 months of price increases. She's convinced it would save her a fortune if she pays quarterly bills. She can't even manage her paper bill and now DB pays the newsagent by bank transfer monthly. Have let DB know as has POA. I think I convinced her but she's probably forgotten everything I said already.

We had a phone call from FIL this evening (he's 93, in a care home, has dementia, and last week his wife died). He was clearly distressed and confused this evening and got the care home to call dh. "Have you heard the bad news about your Mother?"

dh was great with him - reassuring him and reminding him that they were all there with MIL when it happened and that everything was OK. And letting FIL know that we are all planning the service to say 'goodbye' and that we would come and chat to him about his happy memories...

Apparently (according to the lovely care staff) this was all kicked off by him receiving a letter of condolence from a friend. Although FIL seems well aware of what happend, he had momentarily forgotten the circumstances of MIL's death and he thought he had to inform everyone in the family.

So tough.