🪳 Cockroach Café Spring 2024 🪳 🪳

[MereDintofPandiculation]

I’ve had a good clean of the place, replenished supplies, and brought in pots of snowdrops and daffodils to remind us Spring is just around the corner.

Come in when you want to share good news, or to rant, or just to hang out with others who understand what you're going through. The way MN works, hopefully this thread won’t appear in any featured lists, and the only people wandering in will be those who understand what it’s all about.

If you have a BIG question, it might be worth giving it its own thread, so as not to swamp this one.

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. My recent enquiries suggested more people wanted to keep the well known name than wanted to change it to something mor savoury, so for the moment it stays.

@Patsy7299 it seems really odd as others have said that SW is supporting discharge as surely they will have to organise care and fund it? Some hospitals have discharge coordinators especially where patient lacks capacity, although that can backfire too!

stick to your guns, if you are not able to provide care SS have to act with duty of care surely? It’s a mess as different NHS trusts have differing solutions, we were luckily first time with MiL as we have a sort of cottage hospital set up with wards for people who still need nursing care but not full hospital with surgery wards etc. Then assessment is done again.

the assumption seems to be that magic fairies, usually female, will appear to do lots of the caring. DS had elderly lady with cancer and other health problems, but her own DD was blind and lived 5 miles away. All the neighbours ran errands and kept an eye out for her, mostly female fairies and mostly also working and/or with young families.

you could also contact the hospitals PALS.

🤞

They think I’ll be doing what I did previously which caused complete burn out.I’ve told them no. I cannot believe that SW deem her fit. Thank you for suggestions re cottage hospital, I am sure there is one and will be adding that to my list when I speak to them! They’ve assessed her in a ward where she goes from bed to chair and eats what’s out in front of her. She cannot do a thing at home plus was wandering and believed she could drive!

@Patsy7299 sorryto hear this- useful phrases used with effect by board members here in the past include” unsafe discharge” “ risk of readmission”( not good for their stats) and “ carer breakdown”.

Email sent to SW yesterday:

Thank you for update. I've just left my mum and she is more settled however that is because she is medicated.

She is under the impression my father is alive and is asking after relatives who died more than 35 years ago and if they will be visiting. Furthermore, she believes she has 2 houses, where she hasn’t lived for 50 years.

SW has called to advise that my mum doesn't meet requirements for 24 hour care following an assessment. This is a direct contradiction with conversation held with Dr *** yesterday and my mums own GP. I have yet again raised my concerns and advised I will not be able to continue in a caring capacity for my mum should they discharge her

unfortunately, asking after relatives that died years ago isn’t of itself enough of a justification for 24 hour care. While it’s evidence that the person concerned has memory issues, the case for 24h care will need to be made on safety. Is she safe to be left on her own/unsupervised between carer visits? You and the two doctors obviously think not, and so that is the point that needs to be emphasised to SW. Examples such as wandering outside the house, unsafe use of electric, gas and water, fall risks, leaving the house unlocked, opening up the house to strangers. The kind of thing where the answer isn’t 4x a day carer visit.

That is just one of many emails I’ve sent her and unfortunately my mum is doing all of the above you mention 🥲 and they know about it.

Sorry to hear it, all you can do is keep repeating that like a broken record. Good luck. 🤞🏻

@Patsy7299 I’ve found it’s helpful to treat each email (and each page of the AA form) as if they are going to be read by a completely new person who hasn’t seen any of the history

@FiniteSagacity Thanks for the good wishes!

Well the elderly relative who was paying "HOW much?!!" for car insurance had one of those "moments" today and drove into (well - through!) the garage doors. Luckily just shaken up. God bless modern car safety features.

And it's also lucky that the garage doesn't have a door into the house.

In any case I knew I couldn't manhandle heavy wooden garage doors and said they should ring an emergency boarding-up service. I was kind of glad that this was something I couldn't help with, as for separate reasons I was completely wiped (after the phone call I slept all afternoon without lunch) and didn't feel safe myself (ironically) to be driving today.

Hopefully this will prompt a switch to using taxis (I would take "fancy new car with features to save you from yourself" if there was something suitable - I do get wanting to have your own transport).

Hello.
Can I join?

Can I ask when the worrying stops?

It’s hideous, isn’t it? People prepare us for babies and teenagers. We go to classes.

Elderly parents… no.

Sorry, you may have posted about this before, but is it time to step in and insist, rather than hope?

My MIL has never forgiven us for telling her she had to stop driving. However, now the very stressful insurance process has started for the "writing on the wall incident" (her backing into a stationary motor bike rider) she can see she should not have been driving and has stopped complaining about it.

That generation hate using taxis, and it's normal to cling to the driving license for as long as possible. But having a plan for when driving becomes too difficult is probably one of the most important things to sort out in older age. Including facing up to the fact that if your home is not near public transport it probably won't work for ever.

Including facing up to the fact that if your home is not near public transport it probably won't work for ever. Even if there’s a bus stop at your front gate, unless you’re in central London it’s likely that public transport will be totally inadequate for your needs.

And taxis round here work out at £2 a mile. No wonder someone on a pension is worried about depending on them.

Happily I'm pretty sure they've already decided!

Mercifully we were helped with the surrendering the driving licence when medical professionals said it was no longer safe. There’s a very short form to surrender - rather than the very long form to retain.

There are lots of places in most cities that work OK with public transport. I think I'm suggesting that it needs to be something we factor into long term planning, whether that is for us or our parents. What actually happens is that many elderly people get trapped into continuing to drive long after it is safe because they have no alternative. But this is totally predictable, so it makes sense to identify the options - which might include moving - at an early stage.

Is there any benefit to surrendering a driving licence, rather than simply stopping driving?

And taxis round here work out at £2 a mile

it seems a lot. But we took DM through the maths when she had her accident (thankfully no one hurt) and she realised that the insurance payout for the car, plus not paying insurance, tax and petrol, actually paid for quite a lot of taxis if she wanted them. Plus the taxis were door to door and the drivers often helped carry the shopping to the door.

My dad had to give up driving to eyesight and mum gave up soon after, basically because she hated driving and wasn't lumbered with all of it. At first they were quite happy to use taxis as it worked out a lot less than running a car and they used a community minibus for supermarket runs which gave it a social dimension as well. But covid broke the habit and now mum is horrified at the thought of paying a penny for transport. Luckily the community minibus is only £10 for an annual subscription if you have a bus pass but even that gets a huff about the cost.

@PanettonePudding I think just the shorter form in practice to be honest.

DVLA sent DF a long form because concerns had been raised with them. We found the short form instead and DF was able to sign and I returned.

https://www.gov.uk/giving-up-your-driving-licence

DF was due to have to reconfirm he was fit to drive a few months after he surrendered his licence anyway due to age and health conditions, so he still received that at the usual time.

The long form every 3 years was already a task he had completed before but he couldn’t cope with a form like that now anyway. A lot has changed in 3 years.

There are lots of places in most cities that work OK with public transport. Provided you stay within the city. Or confine your travel to other city centres.

There’s a dis-benefit, in that you are surrendering an id document. If you also let your passport lapse, it’s very difficult to open a new bank account or do anything else which requires id.

one benefit of surrendering is that you don’t have to lie when filling in the three-yearly questionnaire about whether you are medically fit to drive

True, and the argument I tried with my father. But my car costs nowhere near £2 a mile even with wear and tear, insurance, servicing, depreciation

@MereDintofPandiculation very good point about the loss of ID. We’re okay for a while longer. I wonder if the DVLA chase it up at all 🤔