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.

@countrygirl99 my mum keeps trying to give my dad away! The house (housing association) is fully adapted for his extensive physical disability needs so that's not happening!

@Lightuptheroom they certainly get some very strange ideas. My ILs had a very small 4 room bungalow. MILs equipment meant FIL needed a separate bedroom. The living room was tiny and there were just 2 small (and uncomfortable) armchairs as needed space to move the wheelchair around and access to kitchen. He was utterly convinced that SS would provide a live in carer for them (at the time he had no care needs himself, just not used to preparing his own meals and doing laundry). When SS said no he thought it was perfectly reasonable that we should do it instead despite working full time and living an hour away.

The social worker thought my mum had capacity until she told him that the ladies in the hospital ward had had a party for her but she hadn't joined in because they couldn't find her! She couldn't say where she had been or why they had had a party but they had definitely been sorry she hadn't been there!

My cousin and I knew she was hallucinating and imagining things but his face as she told him about it all was hilarious!

Although my parents are in their 80s I suspect a few years before I find myself in similar situation, and I appreciate we have been lucky with MiL in that SW found a nursing home. But my mother has already invented a family who are going to move into her house and she move into an annexe. This amazing family will provide 24 hour a day care in return for living rent free. This is based on something similar that my aunt had, with her carer living in upstairs flat for free that my aunt owned BUT there came a point where it was too much for the carer and my aunt went into a care home relatively happily. I have gently suggested my to my mother that she might not find such a family but for now I can’t worry about it. My father thinks he is the same age as his children and can’t even think about such things but he is beginning to resent my mother needing more help. I don’t have much sympathy with him for complex historical reasons, whereas my sister does sympathise. I have given them info on falls alarms but they haven’t pursued it! They are 2 1/2 hours drive and neither have mobile phones that they turn on, so not much we can do, my father fell last week and DM had to call 999, he didn’t need hospital thankfully.

I think being in denial about age and age related issues is quite common but potentially dangerous and hard to navigate. Dreading it with my parents, still got MiL worries even though she is in a caring nursing home.

We have no idea what's happening with MIL who was taken to hospital in the middle of the night on Sunday. She's not back at the care home so assume she's been admitted. DH and hos youngest brother both have jobs that make it difficult to keep phoning until they get through during the day. I was at mum's in the evening and when I got hone DH said they'd both tried phoning A&E a couple of times but no one was picking up so he's assuming someone would phone if it was bad. Aaagh, head in the sand again. So I'm going to phone main switchboard to track her down today. I can at least have my phone beside me and keep trying while I work.
Mum's kitchen bin was a nightmare. It stank the whole house out and mum couldn't smell.a thing. She's decided bin liners are hideously expensive so she's stopped using them but is clearly not checking everything has come out when she empties it. There was a 3 inch layer of god knows what mouldering in the bottom that made me gag as I walked in. So that was a nice job for me while despite my attempts at changing the subject she left coming back to her constant topics of "how I met your dad" and "it would have been our wedding anniversary a couple of days ago". Anniversary was mid June. Still, flu jab is on her calendar, broken light bulb is changed and off milk was disposed of before it went in my tea.

MIL got back to the care home at 3.20 this morning! They are going to give DH a proper update later this morning.

My dear father always said there was nothing good about growing old. It really is crap, isn’t it. For the elderly. For their children feeling stressed. It’d be interesting to know if other nationalities/cultures do it better. A multigenerational household would also be stressful just in a different way.

On the subject of getting old ( well on the way ! )
I'm conscious that although I looked after my mum until she passed , my dcs are over 250 miles away so no help for me when it's eventually needed.
Also not sure I'd want them to have that obligation anyway.

@countrygirl99 I hope you get to hear what the hospital visit was about, I am a bit surprised she came home at 3.20 am. She must have been exhausted - assume they wanted to keep beds free? Waiting to hear what anti depressants MiL will be given and if it even helps 🤞. Fab senior nurse is going on holiday for a week or two, well deserved break but will miss her being around and keeping us in touch.

@RuthTopp I mean to write my wishes and they will include, visit but don’t be my Carers…. Besides my DC likely won’t have their own families for a while yet so will be busy caring for them.

@Juneday I wouldn't want to be dealing with her today. She got taken to hospital midnight on Sunday and brought back in the wee hours last night. She will be hideously grumpy. Haven't heard anything from DH yet, probably won't until he gets in from work.
Trying to work out how to broach the subject of a cleaner to mum after last night's kitchen bin episode. The problem is that physically she is perfectly capable of looking after the house but she evidently has zero sense of smell now and she forgets how long it is since she cleaned. House was a bit grimey last night but not hideous - apart from the bin, I got home and shoved my face into a lavender plant to erase the memory. I think if someone came in and gave the place a good going over at least once a fortnight she'd be ok but she will hit the roof. She was moaning that DB is sorting out a better savings account for her so you can imagine how suggesting she isn't coping with keeping the house clean would go down.

@countrygirl99 Thank god for lavender. Had similar smells issue but Carers didn’t help leaving soiled bedding on the kitchen floor!😮. I got MiL on list for a cleaner with Help the Aged, you could make some enquiries 🤞. Luckily my mother got recommended a cleaner after She fractured her shoulder and loves her, to the point that we get told all
the time about how marvellous and hardworking she is and my mother is a bit bizarre about it tbh but it is a relief she has kept her on. My parents are yet to need much else in the way of help it is one less worry when they do.

I asked DH today if he had read any of the hospital letters he has access to for MiL - he said the complex process of getting access on the NHS app. means he doesn’t have time🤔. I am keen to see her Psych report and any discharge letter from orthopeadics - he clearly isn’t. 🤣

a bit off piste - I signed up to a ceramics course in Jan, having done it once before to take my mind off everything, but found the lecturer difficult and off putting. At the time I had been visiting MiL every day then back to A&E and what I thought would be relaxing and a distraction was not because of this women. I found out others felt the same and a friend recommended a different course and teacher. I turned up for first day of term and the one I can’t get on with is taking the class today. It has made me so anxious I can’t go in. I can’t believe how pathetic I feel - I was quite a rebel at school …. I think it is linked to how I was feeling at the time about MiL and lack of support etc. Luckily better easier going teacher will be in next week. 🤞. I am going to have a coffee and go home. 🤣

@Juneday finding a cleaner would be a fraction of the hassle of getting mum to accept one. I know it's awful but I sometimes wish mum was physically frail as then I could make an argument that might stand a chance. But she's at that awkward stage of alzheimer's where she has zero understanding that there is anything wrong and thinks she manages just fine and dandy and how dare anyone suggest otherwise. Anything that goes wrong/she gets confused about is forgotten pretty quickly therefore she has no problems. Physically she is really robust and regularly walks a mile into town or goes dancing. Physically she is perfectly able to do all the housework in a small bungalow with no difficulty. But her brain is failing and she thinks she did something yesterday and really it was a fortnight ago. E.g. last night she was puzzled that the milk was going off as "I only bought it in Aldi yesterday". But the best before date was 5 days ago and she gets a community minibus to Aldi on Tuesdays so it was bought at least a week ago.

@IthinkIsawahairbrushbackthere this whole capacity thing is a joke on many levels. Funny thing MiL talks about parties too, some she thought she was having and worried about what dress to wear and more recently she says there was a wedding in the nursing home but they didn’t invite her🙁. I can relate that to when a grandchild of hers got married aboard and didn’t initially send an invite because MiL would not go aboard and never had…. It was awkward because MiL then insisted that DH & I should go to represent her side of the family, trying to guilt trip me about it. We were invited but I had only met the relative concerned 3 times and DH is not close to his family so we bowed out. No one was offended. But I think MiL was unhappy about it not fully understanding the cost and annual leave and that we had our own plans for a holiday. 😁 but I also think she felt left out.

@countrygirl99 that is hard and like many seem to find, until something drastic goes wrong nothing seems to change even if you try. I think it may just be a waiting game sadly.

MiL was clearly struggling before diagnosis but was fit having gone for walks every day. A dizzy spell and then the realisation that she just couldn’t understand her bank statements led to her realising she might need help. Your mother sounds strong and determined, my MiL had always been a bit of a fussy type But that’s in comparison to mine who hates to admit defeat! MiL got doctors to come and call me into curtained hospital areas during Covid - my nurse friend said the staff should have said no. I wasn’t happy about it, I would always say to staff she is not my mother! I was a bit embarrassed but with hindsight some of it was likely beginning of dementia memory and anxiety problems. 🙁

@Juneday how strange - my mum also claimed last week that there had been a wedding and she wasn't invited! I think she might have been confabulating the wedding celebration we had at the beginning of the summer for our daughter - beautiful table set out in the Hall with the best china and pretty cakes.

Mind you, apparently the home is closing so she will have to come back to live with us or move to the North and the fire alarm went off a couple of nights ago and my dad fixed it. Pretty good going for someone who has been dead for 11 years :-)

@IthinkIsawahairbrushbackthere MiL has a boy who sleeps at the end of the bed atm to protect her. 🙁. She thinks one son is a doctor and that we own the nursing home so maybe those are positives 🤣. The doctor is actually part time funeral director 🤔 and ex police. But I am not having triplets or twins anymore which is a huge relief all round 😮👍.

Maybe weddings are one of those things people rationalise about being unable to remember. MIL used to get upset that she'd missed our wedding, and had never been invited to our house. I suppose it was the only way she could account for having no memory of these things.

My mum was convinced we were in a holiday cottage when she stayed last Christmas. We've been here 22 years.

When my Auntie (DA?) was still alive and had dementia, she would tell me all about the TV series she was in - she was convinced the hospital ward she was in was actually a TV soap set in a hospital like Holby or something. She loved it. Later in a care home, she thought I had come back from S Africa where I now lived to visit her, and she was sorry I’d got divorced and gone off with someone else as she liked DH. He was with me at the time, sat right next to me on a visitor’s chair… I think she had Lewy Body dementia which is known for hallucinations. In a way it was kinder as it sort of kept her entertained.

On cleaners - my DM is thinking of having one again and I could help her find one, but I am worried about the state of the house in the first place. Mum is a hoarder and the house is very untidy - they make an effort now & again but it’s really hard to clean in there. Is that a problem? Will cleaners still do it and sort of work around obstructions?

@countrygirl99 @Lightuptheroom so difficult. When my Mum was a few months from the end with Parkinsons, M&D had a social care assessment. They concluded that it wasn't safe for them to take my dm in the very small shower, so my Dad sent them away! "We manage fine" no you don't! no you don't!

MIL (in her 90s) had a telephone assessment -covid! - they asked about her bowel habits. Of course they have to, to assess for incontinence etc. MIL was horrified, told them to rip up the form they were filling in because she would not be telling them that kind of information. And then hung up on them. She was fully continent of bladder and bowel and could have just told them that.

@IthinkIsawahairbrushbackthere while my dm was in hospital my dsis (through her work) met Catherine Middleton. The next week my niece met the Queen (Olympics related). There are newspaper photos documenting both of these, but the poor hospital staff must have been raising their eyebrows at the nice old lady in bed 8 with the 'royal' delusions!!

At the same time as the bizarre Royal reality, dm asked me whether it was real or a dream that dogs were allowed on the bed in hospital. I said, no, there might be therapy pets who come to visit but they'd not be allowed on the bed. "Oh OK that's good" said dm "because there were 5 of them, and they were helping me to do the crossword on the computer."

I found out recently that a good friends DC is starting a research masters in neuro- linguistics with specific interest in dementia. Could be fascinating. I kept a diary for a while this year and said I could share some info with her. Be interesting to see where memory, language etc overlap. DC is super bright and is likely to go on to do a PHD. Reassuring to know 20 somethings keen to understand this illness.

I suspect my mother would have responded similarly! Alternatively she would have proudly told them how continent she is, as if it's a positive personality trait for her to take pride in. There is quite some grandiosity about the way she talks about her health, compared to other 'poor souls' who she seems to deem lacking in the willpower to maintain good health (despite an ever growing list of ailments she seems determined to deny)

Just catching up with the thread

This so horrendous isn't it

News from here

Haven't seen mum in a while. She said she wanted to see me and my sister together but said it was nothing to worry about.

We arrived to find her in a terrible state due to stress. Two legal/financial problems have arrived, one of which was the cause of my recent anger as I predicted it years ago, and it's now very much looming over me.

The other is completely out of the blue and involves a foreign relative.

She feels the stress of it might kill her. It's awkward because although I am prepared to forgive, I'm not in a great state to be dealing with this stuff and my sister is notoriously crap at it, though some of that stems from not wanting to do it.

I don't really know why I'm sharing this, except maybe to say - if you have elderly relatives who need to be shouted at to accept that action must be taken, just shout at them. Don't worry about your relationship with them suffering.

If my sister doesn't take on one of these, it will be an enormous problem for me to do it. I should have been much more aggressive with mum about the predictable one. Unfortunately mum and sis have a tendency to think these things will sort themselves out.

Whenever I told them the avalanche was coming, and I specifically said it'll probably happen when I'm ill - having had a couple of serious injuries and illness - they told me not to be silly.

The avalanche is here.

I now to have to decide to save myself and limit my attempts to stop them getting knocked out in it.

I’m sorry Emma. I’m guessing that there is no satisfaction whatsoever to be gained from “I told you so”.