🪳 🪳 🪳 Cockroach Café Late Summer 2024

[MereDintofPandiculation]

Welcome in to the Cockroach Café Bad Daughters’ Room. all fresh and clean for the new season. Join me over here on the sofas amongst the rugs and cushions if you’ve come in from the rain, or over the other side in the shade if it’s 33 degrees outside. Looks like it’s either one or the other.

Good daughters, find your way to the small room behind the stairs. Sorry it’s not as equipped as here, but it doesn’t get much use.

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 more savoury, so for the moment it stays.

Welcome newcomers, and so sorry to hear of everyone’s stresses and sorrows. Sometimes I think all anyone can do is keep buggering on, with as much grace as you can muster, even with love if you can, and for the times you can’t quite manage it, draw a lovely big boundary around yourself and have a good old rant; then re-enter the fray when you feel stronger.

DM to me today, after making an NHS podiatry appointment: I don’t want to wait until the end of November, can you cut my toenails?
Me: No. But I took Dad to a private podiatrist, I can take you too if you like?
DM: I don’t want to pay for that.
Me: Then I’m afraid you’ll have to wait for the NHS one.
🙄
Got to draw the line somewhere. The rest is today’s fuckwittery was enough. And PS God I hate Barclays.

@MotherOfCatBoy not what you asked, but as well as podiatrists there are “foot care specialists”, qualified to a lower level. They can cut toenails and deal with hard skin. Ours comes to the house and charges £28 which I imagine is less than a podiatrist.

Thank you @MereDintofPandiculation that’s useful, I didn’t know that!

Thank you for the welcomes.

My DF also needs footcare but thankfully doesn't want me to attempt his toenails. DM gets podiatry on the NHS but I do her fingernails. Footcare specialist sounds like an option for DF.

The appointments are non-stop and require me to provide transport. At mention of a taxi or patient transport, DM says she couldn't cope with that.

@SesTheBrave when your DM says she couldn’t cope with public transport my ears pricked up….my mother uses the ‘couldn’t cope/can’t cope phrase all the time. It strikes me it means - ‘oh no BlueLegume, I won’t‘. By keep then saying ok we will take you is just enabling her awful attitude. And before I am flamed she has always been difficult. Always.

Yes, my DM has always been difficult too. Today I took them out for lunch with my DB as he was passing through. They haven't seen each other in 18mo as he lives over 250 miles away. It all went well and everyone enjoyed themselves. It was suggested to DM that they could get a taxi once a month and go out for lunch, but no, apparently the taxis are too unreliable and she wouldn't manage.

Mine was claiming she couldn't cope with public transport and the drive to not-local hospital was too much to deal with.

This seemed to be a thinly disguised attempt to get a lift from me. Trouble is, she's driven from one side of the country to the other over the summer without problem but that was something she wanted to do!

@EmotionalBlackmail see also "too far". Before the dementia kicked in, DParent claimed it was "too far" to visit me a few hours away. Oddly though it wasn't "too far" to drive the extra 30 minutes past my house and on to the airport twice a year, then a 4 hours flight to Greece🙄

Was the plan for him to visit and stay? Or visit and drive home again. If the latter, the double trip is a lot further than the airport. And flying does the take the concentration of driving

No, not a day trip to here then back. I've suggested overnight/weekend in the nice B&B round the corner (they have plenty of money and enjoy nice weekends away elsewhere in the country), nice meals from me, etc but nope, travelling the 6 hours+ further to sunny Greece is more fun.

Instead I'm expected to spend hours travelling to them 6 times a year and use my annual leave up clearing up their mess.

moan moan moan 😂

Can anyone tell me what a "Red flag at the OPG" means please? Sister has pulled another of her stunts and I am at the end of my tether with her. She twists the narrative to suit her ends and is now threatening me with all sorts. However, she thinks it's fine to give her DH the keys to DF's place without consulting DF. DF is very upset about it all. BiL is going to collect post for her because apparently whilst Barclays don't mind a POA person living abroad, they can't actually send anything there. TIA

I think that the OPG means Office of the Public Guardian. I suspect that your DSIS is monitoring what you are doing as an attorney and that her views about it aren't very positive (and that's the polite way of putting it).
The trouble about all this looking after other people's affairs is that you are taking on a role with a lot of responsibility with next to no training (unless you already have professional experience in that area) and with the emotional and physical strain that brings.

Thank you @catndogslife . You are correct about her. However, I have been utterly transparent and copied her into all dealings with any professionals. I have tried my best to always act in DF's best interests, even though the H&W LPA has not yet been enacted. I feel judged at every turn and it is making me anxious and ill. DF is furious with her. She can't do any more because 20 years ago she & her DH fucked off abroad and have lived there ever since. DF says he has no wish to go there - he speaks 2 other languages fluently but not that one. When he's here, he potters about chatting to my neighbours, something he would not be able to do there.

If he still has capacity then he can remove her as POA. Partial deed of revocation.

www.gov.uk/power-of-attorney/change-your-lasting-power-of-attorney#:~:text=power%20of%20attorney-,Removing%20an%20attorney,'partial%20deed%20of%20revocation'.

But if he does that @Choconuttolata , given she has "red-flagged" it, won't it look like I'm behind it?

Firstly I'm sorry that all I seem to do on this thread is moan - I feel like I don't give any support to anyone else, and everyone on here is so helpful and supportive to me.

DM is still in hospital, finally on Friday the discharge team spoke to the social care team who have agreed to fund a place in a care home for DM as a next step from hospital. They have no idea how long it will take to get a place as there are very few places available in our county apparently and it could be anywhere in the county.

I've been to see her once this week and she really didn't want to talk to me other than to 'tell' me off. Fine - she is turning more and more into the parent she was when I was younger.

What has annoyed me more than anything this week is that she keeps phoning me (while I'm at work so unable to answer my phone) and leaving vague messages asking me to pick her up. She then doesn't hang up and I get to listen to another 2 or 3 minutes of voicemail of her telling whoever is there at the time how awful I am - I never answer the phone to her, I want her dead, I'm angry that she won't give me all of her money, I just want her money etc etc.

It's all so reminiscent of my childhood and how she treated me/spoke to me. And if I'm honest I just don't want to go and visit her at the moment.

I need someone to tell me it's ok not to visit - how stupid is that? I know it's ok not to visit, I feel so burnt out with everything that has happened this year with DM, the time and mental energy I have spent trying to help her. Again it's like my childhood - trying to make her feel ok and being constantly told that whatever I do is not good enough.

I still have to make sure her cat is being looked after - at what point do I look to re-home him? She could be in a care home for weeks/months/forever - I can't keep relying on her neighbours to feed him.

I feel like everything I am doing for her is out of duty and because there is no one else to do it, not because I want to.

Added to that she will probably live for years yet and I just can't keep doing this. I don't want to keep doing this. Someone tell me I'm not completely evil for feeling like this please!

God that's awful.

I'm afraid I would rehome the cat right now. It's not fair on it to wait indefinitely, and it might take a little time to sort out. Do you have contacts who would help - local vet, charity, or is the neighbour interested?

What would you like to do? Would you choose really to completely cut off contact, or would you rather not do that?

I certainly wouldn't rush to visit anyone who was so deeply nasty to me and apparently didn't think much of me except as a useful servant. You could stay involved enough to know where she is and that she's being looked after. You could ask the ward to try to reduce the number of phone calls (they could say the phone is in use - it often is on most wards).

@notcopingwellwithDMdementia you know it is fine not to visit so please only do what you have to in order to get her settled. I can completely understand how childhood emotions resurface, it is horrible even when we know they can’t hurt us or undermine us anymore. I look in the mirror and see a middle aged woman who had a successful career raised tow children into independent adult hood with great careers, yet I feel jangly all the time around our mother. You have my sympathy. Put your own oxygen mask on first.

Thank you for replying @PermanentTemporary
Unfortunately she phones me from her mobile so the ward cannot control that.

In an ideal world I'd like her to go into a nice care home permanently (without her mobile!) so I could switch off from worrying about what is going to happen next.

It would be nice if her neighbour wanted the cat - they have 3 of their own though so I'm not sure if they would want another one, and of course should DM be able to come home then there would be cat wars!!

I'm going to start asking around locally to see if there are any charities that offer foster care for these sort of situations. I will ask her vets as well - good idea - I can call them tomorrow.

I think I need to call the hospital tomorrow as well to see if they have any more information on what they think has caused this big decline in cognitive function/increase in confusion. She had an MRI on Thursday so maybe that will show something - if they can say that this state she is in is not going to get better then plans can be made to sell her house etc.

Thank you

Thank you @BlueLegume - it's true how 'jangly' they can make us feel.

If the only thing I truly achieve in my life is not creating that feeling in my own child then I will consider myself a success!!

@notcopingwellwithDMdementia you’re not moaning, you’re sharing with people who have more understanding than most. The others beat me to it ref the cat, it needs to go to a new home where it can settle and start again with new servants (I’m not a cat person and rejoice in having high prey drive dogs so have to very sadly turn down various relatives’ offered cats, which I apparently need because I’m rural 🙄).

Your mum is safe, and in the system. Delete the messages without listening if it helps, the hospital will contact you about anything important. Put yourself first for a bit, she has a much lower risk of coming to harm while she’s an inpatient.

@notcopingwellwithDMdementia the Cinnamon Trust can often help with fostering pets in such circumstances, hopefully there's an active branch in your area.
https://cinnamon.org.uk/cinnamon-trust/

Hello, I'm new to this group and posted on another thread earlier in the week. I was a carer to my mother, then my grandmother, who is now receiving palliative care.

I am exhausted and feeling such a range of emotions. I also feel useless as there is so little I can do at this stage (after doing so much for so long), although I know from experience how much I will need to do when she does pass away. I know how trully shit that will be.

My friends are lovely but don't really understand as they've never been in this situation (we're all around late 30s). So glad to find this group, it seems like you'll understand what I'm on about.

Palliative care can go on for a long time so take care of yourself as much as you can, PatchworkOwl. Yes, everyone on here will definitely understand exactly where you’re coming from and how hard it can be.

Thank you. What I really want to do is take myself off to bed and sleep for a week! Dc are still primary school age so need a lot, and it has been a difficult time for them as well. I've been an unpaid carer for so long, it's strange to think it will come to an end.