🪳 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.

@northender welcome. Lots of good advice on here and it always helps to share. We are definitely a generation with parents, some, who seem to think we can simply drop everything for them. That I am learning is not always helpful. Anyway hope you get something here.

Thing is, I don't want to give up work. It's a very, very competitive field, and I have put in so many decades to get here. And when my mother dies, I'd be left without her--and without the work I love. I'm thinking ahead to the coming years here.

There's a bit of slack and if I work hard around crises, I can just about keep it together, but it's so hard.

@northender having sole responsibility must be very hard on you. I share responsibility for my grandmother with my sister and it's still bloody hard.
Hospital visits are proving soul destroying - she is still on the Acute assessment unit as there are no beds on the wards. Several people with dementia in the bays around her who are on their own and frightened - it's heartbreaking. The nurses are very kind but they can only do so much. I'm breaking my visits down to little and often instead of one long visit.

@Abra1t , did you name change or am I being dense not being able to find your previous post?

Not sure of your circumstances but I will pass on the advice of my colleague whose husband had terminal cancer and advised me never to give up work to become a carer. She muddled through, it was really tough, but work gave her something for herself and stopped her whole life being taken over by his illness.

It's a bit like when your kids are small and you pay nearly as much for childcare as you get in salary. It's often worth it to keep your skills up and have some life that isn't just your kids.

That can be even more important when you're caring for an elderly relative, you have no idea how long it will go on for, and the situation is only ever going to get worse.

I don't think anyone should feel under pressure to give up their job for a parent unless they are 100% sure they want to do that.

I'm self employed and myself and my customer this afternoon were having the same conversations that we are having here. We both have elderly family members/ responsibilities and both said that we don't know how people who are employed in jobs where they have to physically be there and can't take or make endless phone calls manage.
For both of us,there seemed to be very little time between losing the responsibility for caring for children,before we were launched into caring for family members.
I'm fortunate in that I can work around most things,but if I don't work, I don't get paid,and the work I'm currently doing trying to keep the family business running is also unpaid.

No name change, no. I was just making a general observation. 🙂

Yes, another friend and I were talking about this just a few days ago. Work can be a source of stress or a kind of refuge. And it does stop agencies assuming the 60-year-old daughter can automatically take on the role.

I feel very guilty for saying this, but my mother’s frequent hospitalisations have at least given me some space to finish a big project and see friends and just generally draw breath. I know she has 24-hour care.

The same friend and I now wish one another a serene week when we see one another. I wish everyone on this thread the same.

Just been skim reading, and can see same issues, the weird assumption or quietly hoping that a magic fairy - almost always a female relative, will appear to be taxi driver, companion, personal shopper etc. It never occurred to DH to ask for time off b cos I was not working at the point MIL had the fall but he did do his share at the weekends. going to ‘babysit’ DM for 4 days on Sat - DSis encouraged DD to book a week away saying we would help then tells me she can’t help until Tues so I arrange to spend a day with DM and DSis on Tuesday and leave Wednesday pm, DS is also leaving Wednesday and returning some time Thursday…. Then DBro joins for 2 days. Funny how I didn’t agree to anything and am now doing bulk of it …. DM won’t ask for help but can’t walk well, can’t put on shoes, going deaf (no it’s the phone not her!), stopped driving and sits in front shouting instructions to any driver who gives her a lift. She won’t use a shower and will only let DD help her into bath with the chair thing - so she won’t bath for a week. I don’t think DD should go away for a week again unless DM will admit to level of help she needs and find an occasional paid carer. We are all over 2 hours away on a good traffic day. Similar by train.

I am going to take spare walking frame that MiL had. DM refuses a walking stick as she likes both hands free to hold onto things or DD to help her and gets cross if he lets anyone else help. She can still cook well, and play bridge …. Long May both last.

DD wished me happy birthday on the wrong day, he’s getting a lot of dates confused, he shuffles and says hearing aids don’t work. I expect something will have to Happen that forces them both to think about some regular caring help (they have gardener and cleaner).

I can’t think too much about how things will work as obvious health issues start to show, but they do have funds for extra help when they admit they need it. Our visits will become more regular I can see that and told DD to expect now that MiL is no longer with us we have more time for my DPs, however frustrating they are….

@Juneday yes the expectation is quite something isn’t it. What makes me sad is the fact any visits we do to DM are really just lists of jobs we could easily pay others to do and then we could do something nice with her such as go out for a lunch etc. Instead due to her defiant stubbornness she will not allow anyone outside me and my DSis and DB do anything but she criticises everything we do. For us this also means we are in a perpetual state of anxiety that is so unfair - and sorry before anyone flames me about being selfish it is unfair. This is a DM who has always told us she ‘will never be a burden’ when frankly she always has been with her silly outlandish opinions about everything and everyone. What she fails to grasp is we are not responsible for her happiness and largely her terrible choices in life have ended her up, or rather us her adult kids in a real mess. Ours will also not accept carers in and has told us she will not go in a home. Essentially she has absconded all life responsibilities and delegates everything to us. It is ruining our families. She doesn’t care. I genuinely believe that.

Slowly losing my mind here. Its awful in here - I've just been for cry in the toilets. If it was legal, I'd 100% help her to die.

@Nodancingshoes sending hand hold and a bucket of black humour and empathy to get you through the day

Thank you xx my sister went on holiday - I told her to go, it wasn't fair on the kids not to - but I feel really alone and think I should be doing more to stand up for her. We are still on AAU - it's been 48 hours now. Hopefully a bed will become available soon - I don't feel anyone gives a shit in here tbh

I know they are busy, they probably do care but...😔

You did a lovely thing for your DSis and her kids. You are absolutely doing your best for your DGM. Eventually though you just run out of goodness and you end up a bit broken.
Things will resolve eventually but for now it's . xx

This is what life was like for my Mum, us useless idle teens at home while her own mum and aunties were dropping around her. She had a breakdown.
This is why I never had my own children. Didn't want to risk being stuck in the same jam.

Peehaps the junior docs strike has perhaps caused things to be slowed down (no political point being made—I have junior doc child). Where my mum is now, there was a flurry of meetings this am catching everyone up

@Nodancingshoes thinking of you, having been where you are. Really hoping you have tea and your own needs are also being met ☕️ (appreciate you must be so sleep deprived though).

@BlueLegume mum was like that, she refused to make / take any decisions then blamed everyone else if the smallest thing went wrong. It was incredibly frustrating and v stressful as you were always anticipating the fallout of everything

She died last year and dad is still here. He’s now delegating all responsibility for anything legal and admin to us, but he’s still competent so we can’t invoke POA etc. The decisions he is making aren’t great and he’s obsessed on stuff we have no control over - ie the stupidity and length probate is taking for mums share of the state, which none of us can change

@LittleMy77 gosh so sorry to hear this. I write details of all of my mother’s negative comments barriers she puts up simply to feel better after each interaction. It’s quite amazing as I’ve been doing this for over 12 months now and I’ve 2 full journals. They make interesting reading and at times entries are so ridiculous they veer between heartbreaking, frustrating, comically sad and baffling. That said I’m not dealing with a change of my mother’s character as some posters have to. She is simply an exaggerated version of how she has always behaved. Always knows better than everyone. Always puts barriers up even when helpful people try. It’s exhausting

I wondered if anyone had any experience of their elderly person giving up eating almost completely? She hasn't been eating properly for months but since she's been in hospital, she's virtually eaten nothing. She is taking sips of water and tea. What will the hospital do? If anything! She says nothing tastes good but I also think she is trying to hasten dying.

I'm not sure it's a conscious choice but in my experience, it's a natural part of the last stage of life. It's very hard for us to watch, as the instinct to nurture through feeding is so strong, but it happened with both my dad and my FIL.

My mum was trying to get cream down my dad for calories, but looking back, it didn't really help and could only ever have delayed the inevitable. With FIL, who had dementia, once MIL tried to accept it, it took an element of conflict out of the situation.

The one thing we agreed on with my dad was not to fit a PEG, as a colleague had regretted fitting one for her terminally ill husband. In some circumstances where recovery is possible it makes sense, but where the patient is pretty clearly in a rapid decline, it may cause more distress and just prolong the pain and discomfort.

Trying to keep her comfortable and reassure her might be the priority now? I found hands became very important at this stage, I have such strong memories of holding and stroking my dad's hands in hospital. Hugs to you going through this.

I've witnessed places where they let nature take its course and don't push food. In DM's case however, she went from sleeping 20 hrs a day and weighing less than six stones, to being over 7 stones and lived a further eight years, albeit with very advanced dementia.
I know which route I'd prefer.

I would not want to prolong her suffering. She is 99 and tells me daily she wants to die. They are keeping her in hospital until they can get her pain under control and clear an infection in her chest. I am finding it difficult to get much information out of them tbh - I have asked several times to speak to someone and they fob me off. Am I allowed to read her notes? Sorry, this is a new experience for me - she has lived independently and pretty healthily right up to now

Read her notes.
Sorry, I had forgotten she is 99.
Could just be they are doing their best to keep her comfortable but don't have anything really to say, especially if they haven't suggested moving her?
With your DSis away, you are in a unique situation. Your DGM will be very grateful she has one of you close by. As Bishy suggests, holding hands is such a positive way to reassure.

I'm thinking of you Nodancingshoes, and your nan. My dad said that everything tasted funny just before he died.
Holding your Nan's hands is a lovely thing to do. If you think that it wouldn't upset her,you could rub some hand cream in,and do her nails. In the absence of being able to help in practical terms,it'd maybe help you feel like you are doing something for her,and would probably be comforting for her too.

MysterOfWomanY I saw my mum running around after her mum,and her mum making her life miserable. Both my sister and I were never close to our gran because of this. You are right,it doesn't only affect the person concerned,but those all around them too.

I managed to talk to a doctor and the rehab team today so I feel better.