PILs have cancelled carers and are now asking when we can visit

[StillNiceCardigan]

FIL is in his 80s and has Alzheimers and MIL is struggling to manage. We live 4 hours away and visit regularly but can't be there day to day. I'm devastated that they've cancelled the carers they had agreed to after one visit. Help me feel less angry at two 80 somethings who have just made life considerably more difficult for everyone.

I am sociable and have friends coming into my home. I have never had a cleaner and it is a different power dynamic. If you do not like your cleaner you just sack them and get another one.
With carers, especially from an agency, you have to take who they send. If you get someone you have never seen come to get you up, washed and dressed and get you breakfast you can't just send them away, because no one else will come. So if they talk down to you, patronise you, or are simply insensitive, you have to put up with it.
I do think adult children should set limits. But I also can understand why elderly people resist carers coming in.

But pretty much all the older people I'm currently running around after desperately need the help and have gone downhill from managing by not doing much. Some stimulation and physical help would really have helped.

I spent 12 hours the other day waiting with an 85yo for an ambulance. Turns out she has a fractured spine. Her carers came in and got her cleaned up with 3 of us turning her, if they hadn't have been in place, I'd have been on my own with this. It was brutal.

There are massive degrees of decline...

@Straightouttachelmsford If elderly people can not go out by themselves, then they have to pay for carers to take them out. This has to come from their own income and it is expensive. Specialist services have been decimated. So often it means two carers to take someone out to the theatre for example. With tickets as well it is a very expensive trip out.
I agree keeping doing things improves your health. But I also understand those I know who say it is simply too difficult and expensive to go out. Especially when you get to the age where all your friends have either died or are too old to go out without carers themselves.

And I think that post sums up perfectly the entire range of "help" and what people expect to be able to do or expect their DC to help with...sigh...

The people I'm looking after need help with basic activities of daily life (getting up, managing continence, eating, washing) and are still refusing outside help, despite being pretty well off.

We're not talking trips to the theatre here but only having had strip washes for several years, barely able to get in the car to go to hospital...

What is the matter with only having had strip washes for years? Unless someone has an accessible shower that is all a carer is going to do anyway.

Yeah and I think id prefer to try and do it myself in my 80s to someone else cleaning my nethers with a flannel!

Who on earth is talking about trips to the theatre?! The elderly parents we're talking about are resisting paid help with the basics of life like washing, dressing, making meals, cleaning, laundry, taking medicine, getting to hospital appointments and maybe going to a session at a day centre.

There are people who will totally understand all of this. I do. 💕

My sister says ‘there are those who have been to Vegas, and those who have not’ she is right.

Just for anyone here whose parents were also difficult when growing up, please please please get the book ‘you are not the problem’ it is excellent.

I have recommended it to so many people. And especially now dealing with the elderly version of difficult parents, it is so helpful.

I would highly recommend it to you @BlueLegume please please read that book. If you get nothing else from this thread, get that book. It will be like pulling back the curtain and all will be revealed to you. Good luck x

As I have posted before, elderly or kids don't command the parade. The middle generation does it. Let your mum realise beggars can't ne choosers and to accept a plan or end up herself in a breakdown, her husband forced into dementia hospital unit and her kids upset with her. Surely she does not want this. Make sure she understands you.

I see my pils about twice a year if that, and that's plenty! Not everyone has nice in laws.

I think your MIL is hoping that you’ll continue to visit every weekend like you have been doing. Think I would call her and be a little stern and say you’re cross she’s cancelled carers as you and her DS can not continue to do an 8 hour round trip regularly!! Tell her she NEEDS to a rearrange the carers and set it up as planned as she needs the support otherwise FIL will need to go in a care home and no wants that!!
I think people on here have been nasty…. The 4 hour distance alone is unreasonable to be expected for you and DH to keep doing… it’s exhausting and expensive to sustain that!!
Speak up… it’s not DH’s job, you need to be firm but kind…. MIL this is your option ‘except the carers or put FIL in a care home!!’ Us visiting weekly IS NOT an option!!

@T1Dmama I wouldn’t be saying no-one wants that in respect of care home. It is possible that route may have to be gone down in the future if FIL’s health deteriorates

Dh’s old aunt cancelled the badly needed carers he’d arranged simply because she hated spending money, though she could well afford it. She thought neighbours should do it all ‘for love’. She sent all carers away saying they were ‘too loud’ or ‘too common’ 😱.

We lived over a 2 hour drive away - it was a bloody nightmare until he - finally - managed to get her to a care home.

I read that quickly and thought the word ‘aunt’ said DHs old ‘’ and I can’t stop laughing now.

Sorry haven't read the whole thread. When my dad first started getting frail, we all said we wanted to visit him and have a nice chat and a cuppa etc and didn't want to be spending that cleaning his kitchen) bathroom. Initially we arranged for a cleaner twice a week, we told him his pension/ benefits were for this purpose and not to worry about saving for the future - we didn't want his money just to have quality time with him ehen we visited. He did end up with carers twice a day towards the end. It was so much less stressful to 'visit' rather than 'serve'.