🪳 🪳 🪳 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.

Thank you all.

@NefretForth that sounds so sad and tough. I agree that it's so hard to relate the elders we knew in their prime with what happens later. I hope she is safe at least.

Sorry for your loss @PermanentTemporary. I’m glad it was peaceful.

I had one of those « little griefs » last week. I spent some considerable time on the phone to Barclays for DM. She has hearing loss and she can’t cope with the endless menus and often can’t make out speech if there is an accent, but she does know exactly what she wants to do with her finances and can still very much make her own decisions, so I do lost of the talking and hand the phone to her when she has to express her wishes/ consent. I’m sure it’s all ok to the person listening but I see how nervous and upset she gets, fearful that she can’t hear and wont be able to understand, that she’ll get it « wrong. » She flapped her hands and strained to hear and swore a few times and nearly got up and walked away, but we completed the call. I see the young girl who was humiliated in maths lessons as a shy teenager - as well as the woman who won’t wear hearing aids. And I feel so sorry for her, even though she frustrates the hell out of me.

@PermanentTemporary sorry to hear that.
Long story short, himself finally passed away. We got back home at 2am. Props to DH who'd had the foresight to fill the car up yesterday...

Here's the thing: because of our respective family histories, neither of these elderly relatives had ever seen anyone dying, ever organised a funeral or dealt with probate.

We both have and it's definitely odd having to explain things to someone over 20 years older than yourself!

@MysterOfwomanY condolences to you both. I hope he was calm and comfortable.

@SockFluffInTheBath thanks. It had got to the stage where it was a relief. Poor man. But the hospital did seem to keep him very comfortable. Quiet room on his own from the start five feet from the nurses' station.

Everything should settle down a bit now, because from this point onwards nothing is time-sensitive in the same way.

@MysterOfwomanY @PermanentTemporary
Sorry to hear of your losses.

I've been away for a short while and just catching up with everything here. Strength and cockroach vibes to all X!

@MysterOfwomanY , I’m sorry for your loss.

Thanks, PermanentTemporary. She’s physically safe, clean, fed, hydrated - but she has no pleasure left in life and there’s no prospect of any. Someone on here said a while ago that wanting to go home isn’t about wanting to go back to a place, it’s about wanting not to be old and infirm any more- especially if you’re mentally unmoored. I think that’s what’s happening with MIL, but it doesn’t make it less sad and awful. And she’s physically tough as nails - survived Covid and a broken bone in the last year, so she’s going to go on like this for a long time.

DH agrees that we shouldn’t take DD to see her again, so at least that’s settled. I can’t bear that she’s forgotten DD, she longed for a grandchild for so long and was so overjoyed when we told her DD was on the way, and such a devoted grandmother until she started to decline.

This is the sad thing, isn't it. You can be very old, unwell and frail, and yet still get some joy out of life.

@PermanentTemporary and @MysterOfwomanY sorry for your losses

I'm currently acting as BILs PA sorting out short notice visits to care homes this evening. Yes you read it right in the evening. I could write a lot more about BILs input but I will keep it in my head for now.

I'm wondering if anyone has advice on how to have enough energy to do the things you actually like doing?

I'm finding that after work, housework, and caring with the travel involved, plus navigating this end of life stage, I'm left with very little time or energy. I'm not playing with the DCs as I usually would and feel too tired for my hobbies. I wake up tired, spend the day tired, and go to bed tired.

It feels like everything goes into the necessary things with nothing leftover for fun or enjoyment, or seeing to my own needs. I think this needs to change but not sure how to go about it.

The solution I found was to drop my hours at work to 30, so I work 4 days a week now, care for DM on one day and then have a "normal" weekend.

On the one hand I'm resentful that this is the least worst option but still involves taking a hit to my income and future pension prospects. On the other, part of my brain is reminding me that my longer term plans always considered the prospect of going part-time about this age. I think it's more that the choice was forced on me. Oh, and I'm also on medication (HRT and sertraline).

It's working though, last night I actually picked up my crochet and worked on a project I've cast aside for nearly a year.

Oh how we laugh. I’m a walking pair of eye bags. I am 3st heavier than when this started and unable to concentrate on the kinds of books I used to love to read because I’m permanently exhausted. I have given up on further career development because, well, I don’t have it in me. Seriously, if someone finds the magic answer please let me know 😅

You have to set boundaries and put those things that you wish to do at the top of the list of importance rather than the needs of the elder you care for. You have to put your own oxygen mask on first otherwise you will burn out. I have just had to take a month off work for just this reason.

In my experience the more you do or jump in and rescue a situation, the less likely they are to recognise that they need or accept external help. You cannot do it all, you are human and have needs and your children need you too.

Sorry, not my most constructive response on here. @Choconuttolata is spot on with boundaries, get them in early and they’re easier to maintain.

@SockFluffInTheBath I used to read every day and I feel so thick now, I can't concentrate on a normal novel. I can also relate to putting the career progression on hold. I see so many opportunities I usually would go for and have to be depressingly realistic - do I actually have the time, energy and headspace to do this? The answer is usually no.

@Choconuttolata
I know you're right. Although I was finding it difficult before, I had a tiring but manageable routine (outside of times of crisis which were a sh-t show). Now she's on end of life care, there have been more, new, things to do and learn. I also have no idea how long she'll live for, so don't know if/when to scale back on visits. I've taken your advice and gone out to my hobby this evening, though! I suppose doing it tired and not very well is better than not doing it at all...?

I think it’s the open ended timeline that is hard to deal with and sucks energy. My situation is currently easier than that of so many here, as my DPs are still doddering on at home and I visit once a week. However, even that is draining after a decade and I look into the future and see more things that need doing, probably several crises to come, and ultimately I’ll have to deal with their house (in a terrible state) which I reckon is a year’s work. And I don’t know when that will be. I know it sounds awful to want to know, effectively, when they will die, but that’s the reality of it and because it’s uncertain, I think after some time it just grinds you down.

(DF had diarrhoea this week because he was constipate and took 3 - THREE - Laxido sachets. I ask you. He’s getting constipated because he’s not moving around as much as he used to and he doesn’t drink enough fluid. I have told him and told him to drink more, but he won’t.)

I'm bleeping knackered and I'M RETIRED.

I've been dealing with something immeasurably easier than most posters on here, and already, after a couple of weeks, I view places where you can't get a phone signal in a completely different light, because I've already lost count of the number of times I set out to do something and the phone went in the middle (inevitably somewhere both cold and noisy).

There's a lot to be said for trash fiction!

I was an avid reader and poster on this thread a few years ago. The companionship on here is a life saver. Those that are going through the same thing, those that give invaluable advice and those managed to make us laugh despite the horrors. My tormentors have been dead a good few years now.

i often thought that I should have cut contact many many years ago. You don’t of course because those demons are only replaced with others. Relatives, friends and officials who have no idea what your life is like.

Some of you have had guilty feeling about a wish they were dead and can only express those feeling to this gang who have wished the same. With relatives living so long it seems never ending. There is nothing wrong with wanting your and their suffering could end.

I am sending huge hugs to you all.

Hi all, this thread is such a lifeline. Although I wish I could offer advice I have no idea what I'm doing. DM is getting more and more confused and her house is falling apart. Yet she is still refusing help except from me. Even when DB calls she tells him everything is fine when actually she's got chest pain that lasts for hours at a time and has stopped cooking for herself now, and is apparently living on sandwiches and cereal this week.

The latest disxovery today is mice in her loft. Her solution was to move downstairs and sleep on the sofa. Not to call pest control or actually do anything about the problem. So I spent an hour today hunting about in her loft insulation for signs of mouse activity and an hour trying to find a pest control that will visit tomorrow in a gap in my meetings on a WFH day, because I can't take any more days off and my boss is already on my case for late work since I was off today to see her. Meanwhile DB is 400 miles away and oblivious. Or he thinks he can be helpful by phoning her, which does nothing to help at all. Ugh.

Sorry for the rant. I am just sick of it today. DM has no idea how it affects me.

@Gardencentrevoucher when mum had mice in the kitchen her solution to mouse poo in a mug was to tip it out and carry on making me a cup of tea in it! Couldn't understand why I insisted on checking and cleaning everything and why I chucked out a "perfectly good" toaster just because it contained a lot of mouse poo.

@@funnelfan

That's great you were able to get your crochet out again. I used to do sewing but haven't in a long time. What are you making?

I work part time as well but the hours are quite irregular so I often don't get a weekend. I think there's a definite psychological break when I get a 'proper' weekend. I should try to plan for that more often.

@Gardencentrevoucher @countrygirl99 OH MY GOD.

Oh.My.god.

Luckily herself has a cat, a cleaner, common sense.. I am sooo lucky.

One of the other rellies rang her today and I suspect was gently urging her to, you know, pick an undertaker. Which I am too... But a day or two either way, meh.

its a granny square blanket, basic treble stitch in one colour with a different colour for the last two rows so requires very little concentration and is good to pick up and put down - takes me an hour per square while watching telly.

I’ve got a Janie Crow pattern all lined up but there’s no way I have the concentration at the moment. https://www.janiecrow.com/the-fruit-garden.html.

We are at care home stalemate. One is holding a room for PIL while DH and BIL make a decision but it needs to be quick as someone else would also like the room. It's a lovely small caring home which is attached to the sheltered housing that has a space for MIL. BIL likes a newer shinier larger care home a few miles away and DH is torn. I'm trying not to interfere too much as its not my parents.

Hope they can decide soon @Morenicecardigans that must be painful to watch and not get dragged into.

I have to do a lot of listening to DH rant on about FIL who has made a series of poor choices and endlessly complains with no acknowledgement that he put himself in his current predicament. But at least we can say to each other we warned him and he went ahead anyway. DH is quite good at ignoring until his sister tries to guilt him into visiting.

For context, FIL moved into a park home in the middle of nowhere 90mins drive from us a year ago. FIL was told by DH we wouldn't be able to visit often as its too far for us. Also told FIL the property was unsuitable and a bad investment. There are no shops or facilities within walking distance. FIL went ahead anyway as he knows best. But now he is lonely and doesn't like his new neighbours. He can't drive due to arthritis, so can't get to shops or local pub, and has realised he doesn't like living in a park home. He wants DH to visit him every weekend!

Weekends are already taken up by ballet lessons, music lessons, birthday parties, school homework, laundry, shopping, more laundry, and rescuing DM from her latest disaster and she only lives 5 mins away! Sometimes I feel sorry for FIL but why would we want to throw 3 hours of driving to see a grumpy bastard 77yr old into the weekend mix when he's done nothing to help himself and nothing for us.