🪳 🪳 🪳 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.

Yep- it's very hard when the decisions that would have been best to make when well are suddenly off the agenda- due to either long term ostrich syndrome or suddenish decline- that's what my FIL was acutely aware of- he originally planned to put his home on the market in spring 2020 and covid put a stop to that and I was suprised to see him suddenly having mass clear outs starting in spring this year and he announced he was going to sell up - but wanted to declutter first

@Crikeyalmighty welcome. What a FIL you have. Sounds really sensible.

Welcome @Crikeyalmighty Your FIL sounds very sensible. My DM lives in Somerset, but is younger, doesn't go out much and definitely fits the ostrich mentality. The trouble is the stuff being buried is getting bigger and it isn't really helping solve the problem(s).
The main complaint at the moment is getting her shopping done. Neighbours have been helping, but I think they have had enough now. The GP surgery have provided a list of approved carers who can do tasks such as shopping, cleaning, lifts etc, and she would be able to afford it. However as far as she's concerned, her family i.e. me should be doing more to help. I have offered to do some food shopping online, but the issue is how she would pay me back. Does anyone else do online shopping and how do you manage it? (I have finance PoA).
PS I live 80 miles away but it takes 2 hours to get to her house.
I don't know where this family must help stuff comes from, guess how much shopping she did for her elderly parents back in the day?

Did your mum's bank provide you with a debit card @catndogslife ? We had a meeting with ours (Santander) last week and they said we'd be getting cards for her account.

I have POA but haven’t activated it with DMs bank. Instead we went into the branch (Lloyds) and she added me to her account as a third party so I have a card in my name. The account is still solely in her name. It’s been a Godsend. @catndogslife I use it to do her food shopping and for clothes and other shopping for her.

@BlueLegume he's due to exchange on his sale tomorrow - fingers crossed- yes he's a pretty sensible guy - was a senior project manager - the only thing I would say is he's quite stubborn- if he gets it into his head that something has to be done a certain way then it's a bit his way or the highway and he won't be pushed into things- to be honest if it comes that his capacity diminishes I think he will be a bit of a nightmare- so am trying not to be smug as I suspect many on here had parents who were great- until they weren't as a result of illness/dementia. Although it seems plenty of you have ones who were always awkward buggers/ narcisstic attention seekers etc - whether ill or well

@catndogslife could the answer to how much she did for her parents be nil? Just a wild guess

@catndogslife could you set up a shopping delivery account that has your mothers card details on but that you can log into to have delivered to her address? I did this for my parents in lockdown and it worked well. I just FaceTimed them and got a list of what they wanted each week delivered. No IT hassle for them and at least they had food and groceries. Unbeknown to me my mother was also going to the shops and buying all sorts as well…massive washing powders etc and lugging them back to the house. I only found this out as an aunt kept seeing her. Turned out my mother was effectively policing her local village to see who was doing what. On reflection I do think lockdown made her a little more difficult behaviour wise than ever.

One thing drove me mad with deliveries was is she didn’t like the way the driver looked she would ask to change supermarkets. This meant I ended up with accounts for 4 different supermarkets. All about controlling things.

@catndogslife do they have any local volunteer befriender services where people help with shopping. The local Age UK might be a good place to ask.

Correct answer!

It's possible, but defining what counts as local when you live very rurally is difficult.
@BlueLegume I think there are only 2 delivery options - one is Sainsbury's and the other Ocado. I already have an account with the former, so it's likely to be that one!

Thanks for the information ammunition.
At the moment we have reached an impasse. I am fairly sure that I cannot do a regular online order using my credit card due to a different surname and address. I know that the odd "holiday" delivery is allowed, but in that case it would still be my name on the order.
DM has said something to the effect that "no way am I having access to her bank account or having a card!" despite me being down as her PoA (the other person named on the PoA is her late partner).

@catndogslife it is all about control isn’t it. I left my parents home 35 years ago and hate having to go back as so many unpleasant memories. It sounds like our mother, barrier after barrier to sensible suggestions.

I am incredibly cynical about our mother’s behaviour. On the one hand it is textbook cognitive decline but on the other it is how she always operated. Dig her heels in with reasons why x y z won’t work for her. I have said it before that she has alienated good people and frankly it seems she is determined to do the same with her adult kids. She certainly distorts the truth so we all get versions of reality and then says she can’t remember doing it. I am pushing for us all to sit down and explain she is going to have to accept food delivered soon. If she doesn’t then she will have to organise herself. We are nearly 2 years into the situation where our father should be centre stage as he heads towards end of life. In stead we are being dragged into this kitchen sink drama just like we always have with her fixations and refusal to see sensible pathways.

I am fairly sure that I cannot do a regular online order using my credit card due to a different surname and address

@catndogslife i used to do this regularly for DM before I activated PoA and got my own card. Admittedly it was Asda not Sainsbury’s, but there was no problem having a different billing name and address to the delivery name and address.

@catndogslife I frequently order stuff from Amazon for delivery to DM and to DCs using their names and addresses using my credit card.

When we lived in Denmark I did it all the time for presents for people in the UK - just add in a different shipping address and then verify using your details

Thanks for the update. So @funnelfan and @BestIsWest how does or did your DM pay you back for purchases made on her behalf that are not gifts?

She does it via the Lloyds banking app.

My mother's solicitor said to be careful withdrawing cash to 'pay' yourself (as in hundreds, not small amounts) because of how they do the assessment if and when your parent needs care and how obsessed they are with dep. of assets. And to keep receipts, invoices from tradespeople etc. Such a pain.

DM doesn't have a smartphone - one of the things she can't cope with!

Ah, I do it for her but we are local to each other

Tesco also allow you to order food for someone else, I did it once for my Aunt when there was no other option and the social worker put it away for her. My Aunt also relied on neighbours until they got fed up with her behaviour as her dementia advanced, decided to stop getting her shopping and then she had no food. It was a nightmare, social care were useless. No personal assistants or agencies would accept cash payment for their time and at the time the POA wasn't activated. In the end I found one local lady who would accept cash, but she wouldn't take her bank card to do shopping so I loaded a Tesco giftcard with money to pay for her shopping. Just before the carer was due to start going in weekly to do her shopping (all Aunt would agree to) then my Aunt had a fall, went into hospital and sadly passed away.

Before I activated the POA for my Dad he used to get me to help him do banking transfers back to me online if we bought him shopping when out at the local supermarket, but we are nearby so it was easy to organise. I now do his online shopping with Sainsbury's and his card details are saved in there, I just put it through each time once I have put what he wants in the basket, although you do need the verification code that comes through to their landline or mobile phone to complete payment if POA not activated.

You know what, now I think about it I only did it a couple of times with my card and mum gave me cash. That became a nuisance so she then gave me her card number and I used that with her permission and ordered as if I was her.

sorry, it was a few years ago now and a lot has happened since! She’s now not capable of accepting a home delivery so I do it in person now with the official PoA card.

Just had another urgent call from mums carers. It seems that she has managed to flood the bathroom and thus the downstairs room AGAIN by running a bath and forgetting and going back to bed.

This is despite me taking the plug off the bath and hiding it and installing an alarm (which was apparently going off at an ear splitting level when the carer arrived). And her personal care slot is at lunchtime to fit with her body clock and the agency do their best to make it a female career who will offer to assist with a bath/washing.

WTF else can I do? Is this it to saying ok, she can’t live safely on her own any more?

@funnelfan oh so sorry. I think the AGAIN word gives you the answer you need. I can only hope someone can help you acknowledge you need to consider she cannot live independently anymore, even with carers. What an utterly difficult situation for you 🥰

It’s the sixth time she’s done it now. FFS.

I’ll be honest, one of the reasons I’ve not pushed for residential care is that it will be a load more work for me in the short term, whereas at the moment things are (usually) ticking over in a manageable way. I’ve no intention of fixing the water damage until mum leaves the house one way or another anyway. it generally dries out over several days as she has the heating on all the time, so no mould etc.

Plus she’s always tended towards being introverted and will hate communal living. When Dad died she responded to people’s concerns about her being lonely very positively saying that she’s always been quite happy with her own company. Her experience of the reablement faculty after her last hospital stay was other residents wandering into her room which she absolutely hated.

Aargh!