🪳 🪳 🪳 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.

100% this. If you read the NICE guidelines it is all meant to be joined up between healthcare and care, with family consulted. This has not been my experience.

Wishing strength to all of us navigating the broken system.

The care coordinator checked in with me via WA. Given herself can speak for herself just fine it's not necessary , but might be handy in future! And given I have PoA, can't blame the care company for wanting to have good relationships with anyone who might be signing off on the bills.
Have a day off visiting a friend, and still, we talk of carers, and elderly relatives, and overstretched GP surgeries, as we ourselves hobble slightly shakily around ..

I think we're about to find out.

MIL was admitted (as a social admission) to hospital last Saturday and has been having various tests. No one has yet told us what they have found as we can only visit in the evenings due to work.

We know that the manager of her sheltered accommodation has raised safeguarding concerns, so it seems unlikely she will be able to go home. Still working on the next steps.

We had a long call with the social worker yesterday to assess DMs care needs. Needless to say she performed to the best of her ability. Could remember everything she was asked down to the ages and jobs of the grandchildren. She looked amazing too, her skin was glowing, her hair was lovely. I think if she’d been asked to demonstrate her mobility she’d have gone in to a high kicking dance routine. She’s very determined.

Got to unload this morning, to friends who know the score, which helped a lot. Off again to the hospital today. I'm so tired, and there were plans we had which are, now, most likely going to be cancelled, with most of the stuff not refundable.
Says something, doesn't it, that by the standards of this thread, this is all pretty lightweight!

My mother has a way of saying ok when something has either 1) completely gone over her head and she doesn't want to admit it or 2) she has understood but has absolutely no intention of following an instruction and doesn't want to admit it. Took her for a hospital appointment this morning and she has a process she needs to follow for a test and she was using that ok. I suspect it will be a monumental failure. I've done what I can to put in place support in case it's 1 but if it's 2 nothing will help. I strongly suspect it's a 2.

Am visiting ILs and I haven’t seen them for a few months. FIL has dementia but I’ve noticed he’s sort of forgotten that he’s eaten and is constantly snacking on sweet things. Since we got here at 3pm he’s had a banana, some chocolate biscuits, tried to eat another banana but MIL stopped him. We had McDonald’s (please don’t judge) which he hardly ate and is now eating a trifle. It doesn’t bother me as at least he’s eating but is this “normal” as dementia progresses?

I’d also forgotten they are both hard of hearing. Tv is so loud and no-one seems to notice!

We had McDonald’s (please don’t judge)
No-one’s judging anything on this thread

MIL’s dementia is the opposite, she forgets to eat, and has no appetite. I think it’s fair to say there’s no normal with dementia except it’s cruel and unnecessary.

Definitely not judging the Maccy D. It's not something I like but I have been known to dive in on the way home from Mum's when I'm starving.

Sugar cravings seem to be fairly common in dementia.

Moan moan moan

I can't do anything right. Everything I do is wrong for someone. Apparently, the care home is wrong, the nurses are crap, the food is crap, the location is wrong, the doctor is crap. All my fault. Sibling and DM don't want me selling the house that needs sold, I'm doing DMs POA wrong, I'm not visiting enough, I'm not showing enough "ambition" at work, which is also crap. My coursework is crap. I'm a crap wife because I'm moaning about being moaned at. All the chasing around and endless POA admin, never a word of thanks.

How easy is it to become a nun?

I hear you on the cancellations. It just makes me sad to have to abandon plans. We lost the cost of our holiday this week as we didn't think we needed insurance for a week in the UK.

@user14541775 sending . Escaping to a nunnery sounds a good plan.

Yes, DM lives on biscuits. She has lost the ability to recognise when she is hungry or thirsty but snacks on biscuits all the time and has loads of sweeteners in her tea and coffee. She lies in bed all day too, how she’s only 7 and a half stone goodness only knows. I get automated texts from her GP surgery asking for me to take her in for a blood sugar test because in the past it’s been a bit high, but I’ve not bothered - she’s not going to change her diet at this stage.

@user14541775 a bad daughter's place is in the wrong,,, except we're not bad, we're just wading through crap because someone has to

That sounds horrendous @user14541775

I doubt a convent is the answer though - they're also full of old people as most nuns are getting on a bit now (friend is about to become a nun - she's the youngest by several decades!)

Hm @EmotionalBlackmail Perhaps moving to a remote island to count seals then. Although a walrus would probably turn up to tell me I was doing that wrong as well.

@PermanentTemporary indeed I am a bad daughter, probably the worst of all the bad daughters in England. All the other daughters are better and manage to look after their DM's properly, giving up their lives and jobs and managing everything just smashing. So everybody can continue on their merry way with no inconvenience, (no) thanks to the wonderful daughters, all of whom are better than me, more capable and more cheerful.

I remember muttering at one point that I was going to live on an island on my own!

Definitely not a good daughter here. I'm sick of hearing about DM's neighbour's saintly good daughter though! Although I bet the saintly good daughter is secretly planning an escape to an island too.

The saintly good daughter is probably one of us sick of hearing how marvellous you are @EmotionalBlackmail 😂

@user14541775 deep breaths. None of this fair. You’re allowed to be annoyed.

The sweet tooth is common with dementia. My Aunt was living on ice cream before she passed away. My Dad seems as if he is on the same path and seems to rely heavily on biscuits, chocolate bars and lucozade.

Also a bad daughter here, have pulled back significantly from visiting my Dad over the last week . I am just exhausted and wanted to spend time at home withy children rather than travelling hundreds of miles to tackle my Aunt's hoarder house or running up and down on small errands for my Dad who could amalgamate them into one. I know he is lonely and creates excuses for contact, but he chooses isolation, so I am low on sympathy right now.

"Some of the changes that occur in Alzheimer’s disease are similar to those in diabetes. In both, nerve cells in the brain may become resistant to the effect of insulin. This may lead to the build-up of amyloid and tau proteins in the brain. Alzheimer’s disease is sometimes unofficially known as type 3 diabetes."

www.alzheimers.org.uk/about-dementia/managing-the-risk-of-dementia/reduce-your-risk-of-dementia/diabetes#:~:text=Some%20of%20the%20changes%20that,known%20as%20type%203%20diabetes.

It's strangely comforting to hear about someone else in the same boat.
I have big plans for next year and, hoo boy, will I be booking all the accommodation refundable.

Same here, i've given up trying to book events because there's always some reason I can't go, either yet another preventable crisis or I'm knackered from dealing with yet another preventable crisis.

It's no way to live

I'm afraid I'm quite rhinoceros skinned when it comes to preplanned events. My mum would never have cancelled for me. I remember taking myself to A&E by torn cartilage in my knee as a teen because mum didn't want to miss her favourite programme.

Well my lot, bless them, were saying we must go, that they can find someone else to take them in...
Now, if I was confident of an eventual happy outcome then I'd take them at their word. I'm not, though (would be great to be wrong!). My current best guess is that this will be a one-off crisis :(