Personal care for mum and carers

[MumsLittleHelperz]

So, mum won’t have any carers visit. She is managing (more or less) with a friend and I helping, but is becoming increasing frail. I don’t think it will be long before she needs help to get dressed and washed, and she expects that I will help her shower etc.

I just can’t picture this at all, and I’m feeling really guilty about not wanting to help, but I would prefer she had a carer. It’s more so washing, I don’t mind a hand getting her changed.

i don’t want my last time spent with my mum to be these memories. We don’t know how long she will have, but she has stage 4 lung cancer, so it’s likely months rather than years.

How can I either manage to do this for her, or not feel so guilty about it?

I don't know what the answer is but I do understand about the personal care side of things. My mum had two care visits a day and she somehow managed to convince them that she was managing personal care. I've no idea how. She wanted me to help her wash and take her on and off the toilet and it was so hard. My mum was living in the granny annex so it was natural for me to help out but even with the carers twice a day I found it too much. My mum had dementia though so it was impossible to reason with her or explain things. No help I'm afraid but a lot of sympathy and understanding.

Ask for recommendations for local care companies and call them for a chat. People not wanting care put needing it is something they deal with often and they can hopefully help you navigate this. Also I'm sure she will have a lung cancer nurse specialist who can offer advice.

I wouldn't want to do it at all so yanbu

I wouldn't want to do personal care for a relative either - it's demeaning for them and depressing for you and will change your relationship and not for the better. As she has lung cancer, rather than dementia or something that affects her ability to reason, I'd tell her that.

If you can preserve your mother daughter relationship then I would do all that you can to do that.

woudl your mum find it easier to have a small team of people supporting her. Private care companies often end up sending lots of different people which for something as intimate as personal care I can understand is not as nice for the worsen receiving the care. It is possible to apply for direct payments and employ personal assistants of your choosing but the application process can take a while which doesn’t sound ideal in your circumstances. Instead can you organise something similar yourself ? We found a lovely lady locally through word of mouth who supported my DF at home, initially coming in to help him put the hoover around and gradually getting to know him so that he would allow her to change the bed, then trim his finger nails etc and it evolved so that he would have a shower with her support every other day.

Not something I wanted to do either. I was so relieved after a hospital stay, that they wouldn’t let mum home until she had carers. They shower and wash her hair. Just explain to your mum, that’ll you’ll need professional help to make sure your able to give her the best care.
Have a look what’s available in your area, here we have a private company called helping hands, their able to come in for however many hours you need, to shower, shop or clean etc.
It depends what you can afford. You can get in touch with adult social services on line and ask for an assessment. They’ll look at how much your mum can afford and advise which benefits you can claim. Good luck.

Echo pp and agree please try and maintain the daughter role not carer.
facilitate, monitor, arrange- but don’t regularly do as it will put huge pressure on you and you don’t know what the timescales are. You need to manage and look after yourself so you’ve got something in the tank.
does your mum have attendance allowance? Worth contacting age uk or Macmillan for advice- also are your local hospice involved? They can offer all kinds of support.
ask around for agency recommendations- gp etc may know. County council website may have info/ advice( adult social care)

Mine started trying to do this whilst in hospital - wanted me to take her to the loo instead of 'bothering' the staff (private hospital!). I refused then as it could have been disastrous - she'd just had surgery and was very unsteady, I've never been trained in manual handling with a person - so we could have caused real harm to both of us.

It's a lot simpler to have a very clear boundary which you never cross, then there's no confusion. But think about the bigger picture - you don't want to do it, don't know how long it might have to be for and presumably can't guarantee always being available to do this.

I second Macmillan- they organized carers for mum (even though she said she didn’t need them….she did)

Dsis had to help with personal care a few times and found it quite distressing to see mum like that, esp as her decline was very rapid

if you’re not trained or used to it I think it’s totally understandable to it want to do it.

sending love, it’s so hard