🪳 Cockroach Cafe 🪳 Autumn 2023

[MereDintofPandiculation]

I’ve just done the autumn deepclean, brought in a load of logs, and made sure we have plenty of rugs and throws, and toasting forks and marshmallows. I’ve even brought in extra rugs from the Good Daughters’ room under the stairs - they’re not needed there, no-one ever uses it.

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.

Oh I feel your pain. On clearing....clocks with no hands, burnt frying pans with no handles and most strangely trousers with one leg cut off 🤔
The hardest things for me have been the cards and notes as they obviously mean so much but what can you do with 80 years worth? Perhaps I need a special 'Foundation' building in which to store them, where I could also add a jacuzzi to restore my worn out spirit.
As for what would happen if it were left to GPs, Social Services etc, precisely nothing. I am sure some people have good experiences but mine have been completely dire.
DGM has had the most awful time. Fell and broke arm on the one weekend I took off so was on floor for 24 hours. Went into hospital for 4 weeks as a result. Almost ready to leave when nurse forgot to put up bed rail so she fell from bed breaking her hip. Rehab, left for hours in wet bed, served disgusting congealed food and just basically ignored. First care home, found her on floor in pants and vest only beside stripped bed (she had spilled her tea). It took me an hour to get her up, clean and dress her etc, and during this time no one had come back. I could go on and on and on but suffice to say her experiences have been shocking.
Thankfully, where she is now settled is as good as a care home can be but these experiences mean that I now find it very hard to skip a day as I have no confidence.
My DH also finds it very difficult to visit as he struggles to adapt his language and often says I speak to DGM like a child. But that is what she now is.
As for your SiL, you should have a look at the thread about HyacinthBouquet quotes, I think you might find her there. At the very least you'll have a good laugh.
Good luck to you and all those struggling to be the best that they can be in difficult times. As someone said here, it's a marathon, not a sprint x

So Christmas is coming up. We always have nan on Christmas day and my Sister has her on boxing day. I've never minded - she just sits on the sofa, the kids flit in and out to talk and she generally enjoys the day. This year I am absolutely dreading it. Things have changed so much this year - I guess at 98 she has just had enough, I suppose I don't blame her but its draining and frustrating. I'm planning on getting her just before lunch and dropping her back late afternoon as, frankly, I don't think I can manage longer. I'm still doing 3 visits a week but, I admit, I'm not staying as long as I used to. She's already told me she hates Christmas and wishes it was over. I actually love Christmas!

@lemondoughnut how awful. However they frustrate us, that must have been heartbreaking to see.

@Nodancingshoes we had a very similar relative although she was a lot younger - early 80's. Collecting and returning would take at least an hour and a half out of the day, twice. She would arrive in a flurry of bags (including her own buttered bread!) and after the rigours of the journey (20 miles) she could not do anything - not even walk from the living room to the dining room - and would want to give the children the presents "from the little girl down the road". These would be given with much excitement and pressure to open instantly and were usually cast-off half-filled colouring books and pencils cases full of pens that didn't work! She would be most upset that they didn't immediately want to start colouring when they hadn't even opened their presents from Father Christmas because they had to wait for DGtA to arrive!

We would have dinner, the children would have their presents and then before she went home she would have to have her tea. The bread and butter would come out again and I had to make sandwiches for her when everyone else was in a turkey coma or playing with the children.

It makes her sound like a nightmare but the year she died we were all too upset to face Christmas in the house without her so we went out to lunch!

Mum will come to us Christmas Day. Last year I took her home Boxing Day but this year DH will take her home in the evening. That means both of us are doing a 2 hour round trip on Christmas Day. But last year she struggled with the stairs and now she's having dizzy spells that have resulted in a few falls we daren't risk it. That and having to explain that we aren't in a holiday cottage this has been our home gor 22+ years got exhausting.

Hi can I join you please?
First Christmas without my beloved Dad this year. We lost him at the start of this year. I'm really missing him. We will have a full house but there'll be a big empty space around the table 💔

So sorry to hear that. Always feels particularly painful at this time of year. I hope you can find some solace here x

@SamphireAndSalmon it can be such a hard time. My dad died just before Christmas 11 years ago and I still miss him. Do you want to tell us about your dad?

and most strangely trousers with one leg cut off I have a pair of boots with the feet cut off. Useful source of good quality leather - one has been used to patch my computer chair.

The hardest things for me have been the cards and notes as they obviously mean so much but what can you do with 80 years worth? Photograph them? You don’t need to keep the ones that of value only to her once she has died, just the ones of value to the still living. I had a rather brutal comment from my ND DS “They may be your memories but they’re not mine”.

It took me an hour to get her up, clean and dress her etc, and during this time no one had come back.There’s a principle in physics which says the act of observing changes the behaviour of what you’re observing. In our nursing home, the staff try to leave you undisturbed with your lived one. Had you not arrived, they may have come to attend to her. Though in your case, although while they might feel you were able to get her dressed, I don’t see how the could have imagined you could get her up into a chair.

@SamphireAndSalmon So sorry I feel sad when I lay 5 places for Christmas dinner not 6, and my Dad is alive and comfortable in a nursing home

@MereDintofPandiculation good idea re photo of letters etc. I have taken photos of photos which went in a book for MiL birthday starting with her as a child. It worked surprisingly well. Just back from a visit, she was not a happy lady, confused and upset and same conversation as always. But some accusations that we didn’t believe about staff slapping her face and dr giving her a blood treatment🤔. Spoke to senior nurse who said she is shouting out and being very difficult and upset. Wants her room, then doesn’t, etc. They have upped her anti depressant and are observing. Dr will see her again next week. She shouted at DH that he needed to take her upstairs but there isn’t an upstairs. We left after 45 minutes. Hard to know how much is an expected decline and how much is depression. Moments of clarity E.g. can you get me Christmas cards. DH sees more clarity than I think there is, I would say the conversation goes the same way on every visit, including asking me when I am having my baby. My youngest is 23🙁. Sad to see, do our visits make her worse or better, I am undecided.

If she's shouting out and being difficult, there's a possibility that an over-stretched carer might get frustrated. Keep a sceptical mind but listen, don't absolutely reject. But most likely "confabulation". My Dad was telling me how the "helpers" are people doing community service, and that one of them is doing community service having killed someone in a road rage incident. And one day, that nobody had been in the room for 8 hours.

I'm so sorry @SamphireAndSalmon. I can only imagine how hard it will be.

I hope everyone else is managing ok. The end of another weekend. I posted here in absolute despair for the first time last weekend - ended up calling in sick on Monday and then spent the rest of the week playing catch up. This weekends visit wasn't as bad but I feel sad. My dad is deteriorating so fast but also still eating/drinking. Unable to communicate or move now, which is hard. Who knows how this will progress.
Christmas approaching is making me feel stressed. How do you cope putting a brave and happy face on for young children when you don't feel so happy yourself? Or do I just need to man up?!

How do you cope putting a brave and happy face on for young children when you don't feel so happy yourself? Or do I just need to man up?! Woman up, I’d have thought It’s us that spend more time making sure other people have a good time.

Try to look for the little rays of sunshine in the gloom. It makes it easier to keep up the facade and may help you feel better. I remember when my mum was dying, my 14 month DS was a delight. One life coming to an end and another begins.

your children will love Christmas. Enjoy their enjoyment.

Sorry to hear that @FeelingOverwhemed. Can he still hold your hand? Lots of communication in touch. It must be very hard to not show children how upset you really are. You can explain that you are sad, and why, I suppose, and then pack it away after that and try to enjoy some of it.

@Juneday on the shouting out, my Auntie did this towards the end with vascular dementia (and I think she had Lewy Body dementia as she had a lot of hallucinations). She would regularly shout “help” because I think she always wanted to go back home and feel safe there although she was way past being able to be in her own home. It was so sad. When I visited it would subside for the duration of my visit, but several times I could hear her shouting before I got to her room and afterwards when I left.
When she died I was glad that was over for her.

Oh, I feel quite jealous having not found any footless boots!
Great idea about the cards. Thank you. I know which ones really matter so I could get those printed into a photo book.
As for the care home, you're totally right and that is how it should be. No one needs or wants carers popping in constantly especially when they're short on time and usually stretched anyway. Where my DGM is now has exactly the same practice but in the episode I mentioned, no one knew I was there and they'd just forgotten about her.

Where my DGM is now has exactly the same practice but in the episode I mentioned, no one knew I was there and they'd just forgotten about her. That is appalling. They can't even say "we had a bigger emergency elsewhere" because it would have to be quite a big emergency to trump that one.

MILs funeral is 8th December.
Mum is coming to us for Christmas Day.
When FIL died it was months before she stopped asking how he was getting on.
When I went round last night for just an hour she asked how is MIL is twice.
She's also developed an obsession about me needing to be a grandma for some unknown reason and also went on about that last night a couple of times.
DS1s partner can't have children, medical reasons, no option even for IVF.

Christmas Day is going to be a nightmare isn't it. I'm going to be on tenterhooks trying to divert awkward topics.

@countrygirl99

I wouldn't worry about your mum saying inappropriate things . Just pre warn your other guests how forgettable she is and that she has lost her ability to understand that things are better not mentioned .

You are right

@countrygirl99 I would normally suggest that you play 'Granny Bingo' counting her likely repetitions, however, maybe too sensitive a subject, even for that... Dec 8 is the day MIL ashes are laid next to FIL.

We could certainly play granny bingo with some of her repetitive - all the "did I ever tell you" ones where you think only a couple of million times, yes I did know you met dad when you were 17 and yes I did know he was 1 of 11 children.

Oh I remember Christmases as a teenager and getting “the look” from my mum not to argue back to elderly relatives spouting nonsense. In this case it was my racist and anti-semitic great-uncle - I had no idea of his beliefs until he started on on year about never shopping at Tesco and M&S because they were Jewish and how he walked out of a restaurant when a Chinese couple came in. Sad because when I was little I loved him as he did magic tricks and could make 10p appear behind my ear. Bolshy teenager me had a very different view. Now of an age where I can appreciate that people are complex and it’s possible to think fondly of a family member while still abhorring some of their actions/thoughts.

not quite the same as your mum countrygirl but an early lesson in “you can’t change the person so change the subject”. Agree that it’sa good idea to warn everyone else in advance that she has some cognitive decline and let it wash over you in a “there she goes again” way. Are your relationships with your family such that you could pre-warn them of her current topics of obsession and you all agree in advance a strategy/distraction technique to handle them?

Just don’t make your coping technique Baileys Bingo if you want to make it through the day upright!

It's DH I'm worrying about really. He's been full on with sorting out the funeral and sadmin and one of his brothers is being a right prat (which is entirely in character sadly) so I think once the funeral is out of the way amd he has a bit of breathing space he might struggle a bit.

Now of an age where I can appreciate that people are complex and it’s possible to think fondly of a family member while still abhorring some of their actions/thoughts. Lovely to hear you say that, when I’m so used to AIBU and the belief that one questionable remark by an otherwise kind and generous person brought up in different times means you should cut that person out of your life forever.