🪳 🪳 🪳 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.

She is meant to be coming to us for Xmas but if she wee's on the sofa, that is not happening 🙈

Update - DM was taken in to hospital by paramedics yesterday and will be kept in until there is an adequate care plan at home. She couldn't get out of bed yesterday and fell again whilst trying. The carer was able to help her get up but her attitude was appalling - 'why do you think social services are going to do?'. I said when I'm gone, she could be on the floor 5-7 hours before she is found. 'I see it everyday she said'. The paramedics were a different story and they were amazing. I had decided if they wouldn't take her, I would leave there and then! Sometimes, you just have to do that!

@Newmum738 sorry to hear you had to get to the point of walking away - I did that when DM was in majors A&E - wandering around seeing dogs and cats on the ends of beds (& stroking patients legs), nursing staff were telling me she would be discharged because there was nothing medically wrong with her. She disappeared and came back with another patient who she declared was her friend and was coming home with her. At that point I told the staff I had to go and left her there. She had a fall and cut her head - then they admitted her.
Honestly it's so bloody hard to get help!
Sending unmumsnetty hugs

We went through this last year with my DF. Johnnie Johnson shelter housing do a financial check, basically to see if the potential resident has enough money to sort themselves out. A friends cousin lived in one and had bought all new furniture as he was just over that threshold.
My DF was way over it. He's now in an Abbeyfield, own small flat, all bills except telephone/internet covered and two meals a day. No care as such but no issue with a having carers come in and the staff do a check every morning. it's a nice place and the staff are great.

@notcopingwellwithDMdementia ha ha! Nothing medically wrong. Great! Call Social Services then 😂 I'm glad you walked out. They just play on our emotional ties with no consideration at all about who else is impacted.

@Laughingravy do you think she will be refused sheltered accommodation then? She would pay for it herself. There is no way I'm selling her house and buying somewhere else. It couldn't happen fast enough for a start and the property is tied up in a trust.

@Newmum738 There was no issue with DF at Abbeyfield. So long as you can cover the rent you are welcome. Johnnie Johnson seems to be aimed at providing housing for those with fewer assets - so no home to sell. Lots of info on their website.
We dropped lucky getting Dad in at an Abbeyfield. Their model doesn't seem that common, which is a real shame. The most similar we could find was the dreaded McCarthy and Stone. DF was reluctant to rent initially so quite liked the idea of buying a M&S but being a Yorkshireman was soon put off by all the very pricey extras. In his state of decrepitude it wouldn't have suited him really.

2 extra care applications ready to go! Hopefully DM will recover from this fall and be able to get an extra care place closer to me. She lives so far away and I feel like the drive gets harder every time!

Lots of new issues with mum in the last couple of weeks. We had what we thought was "the big one" a couple of weeks ago with allegations about behaviour outside the home. But there's no definitive proof it was mum so that got us nowhere. Hopefully the colder weather has put an end to that one. Sorry to be vague but it's so wierd, specific and locally known so really would be outing. Since October there has been a new minor issue every couple of days so it really feels like a blow up is brewing and I think it will be a behavioural issue rather than medical.

Ah fun times today! The OT at the hospital called and said that Mum was being discharged because they can't see any problem and she has capacity. I should've asked what makes you think she has capacity is it because she answers your questions confidently? And have you checked if her answers are correct? I didn't have to present to mind to do that. But I did say that I have observed her at home and it is my belief that this would be an unsafe discharge. I said I was more than happy to work with social services to get her home, but it needed to be a partnership. So far no one is going to pick her up and she has not arrived home so I'm taking that as a positive for now. I also know she has had a social worker assigned and I'm taking that as a win too. We shall see what the evening brings!

I have run myself ragged since August trying to be the model daughter to a narcissistic mother who finds herself at the palliative stage of her cancer treatment. My blood pressure has been spectacularly high etc .
tonight I’m sitting in this cafe to tell you that I am done. She has told her social worker and hospital staff that I am not be involved in any discussions regarding her health or care.
Do you know what- I feel bloody relieved as I am sick to death of exhausting and futile attempts to navigate the NHS and care of the elderly and I’ve got a lifetime of abusive and coercive behaviour to put behind me.

@HerkyBaby that sounds positive for you! What a relief not to be involved in decisions about her care. Now you can relax! All the best.

I was the whipping boy for my mum for 70 years. When her final illness came in the form of a stroke it took 6 weeks with no food for her to die. In the ward there were others who were also sitting with dying relatives. One thought kept running through my mind, ‘this would be so hard if I cared one jot about you’.

My mum was the youngest of 10. Obviously they all died before her. When asked in hospital whether she had any family she always said ‘ no they are all dead’. The nurses would look at me and I would say ‘thanks’ .

Six weeks with no food! That's brutal, didn't they also withdraw fluids and sedate etc? I don't know why the NHS does this.

It was not brutal at all. She had a IV drip and she just seemed like she was asleep. They said she was not in any pain. Every day we were expecting her to go. Eventually I asked the doctor if it was time to withdraw the fluids and she said yes. I did not visit after that.
Her husband who had mild dementia kept asking me when the funeral would be and I had to tell he she was not dead. Even his neighbours asked me .i don’t think any one thought a tiny 94 year old could live that long.i think the body shuts down into survival mode.

Oh ok. Was just wondering as my df had a stroke, with untreatable bleeding into the brain, and they put him onto the end of life pathway (no IVs for fluid etc, just pain relief and sedation) the next day. He was in his 80s and died four days later.

I had a call from the care agency earlier. Turns out they are having an upcoming CQC inspection - they need to provide a list of names of client families who would be willing to talk to them and they were asking for permission to provide mine. Happy to oblige.

It’s not their fault but I had the usual sinking feeling and “what now” when the number came up. I think they realise that’s the general reaction to them calling someone because they always start “Hello-it’s-NAME-from-CARE COMPANY-nothing-to-worry-about” when it’s admin related. If they miss out the “nothing to worry about” then I know it’s potentially something to worry about!

Minor whinge, superficial, not really worthy of comment except it felt unfair- and that’s childish. A manager at work yesterday asked me if I was unwell, said I looked run down. This is with a little fake tan on to counteract looking exhausted. He’s lovely, he really is, but I just wanted to tell him it’s not my fault I look like a hag, I’m not allowed to get a nights sleep. I’m selfish if I’m not ‘ON’ and rest is overrated 😞

I've been to a funeral for a 90+ year old
acquaintance this week. Which really got me thinking.

She was amazing, so positive and sprightly, even with quite big care needs in the last few years. She had no children and had never married but had been a friend to many of all ages, gathering up people who needed support or a meal. Listening, never talking down to people. Great with children too.

The church was packed, with people of all ages there. A real celebration of life.

Such a contrast to my grumbly moany relatives who couldn't care less about anyone else.

DFiL has been in hospital for a while now because he was admitted and the nursing home won't take him back. Whilst in hospital they have discovered a rare fungal infection that has got into the blood stream, lesions on the liver and shadows in the lung which they think is cancer. He has been bedridden for over a year now and in a Local Authority funded nursing home. DH has been asked to go to a meeting to talk about the options even though they are recommending that they make him palliative. My husband and his brothers are saying they don't want to go to the meeting because DFiL has capacity and can make his own decisions. I said I don't think they want you to go to make a decision but to be there when they break the news! Thankfully, I think DH will go but we are now wondering how long he might have. We fly to Lapland on Monday and even before this, we had the conversation 'what if someone dies while we're away?' 😳

@Newmum738 I think you are right about wanting them there to break the news. Tell everyone at once and there's no risk you have to keep explaining to individuals or for things to get distorted/missed out with retelling. There's always one family member who wants the medics to put all hands to the pumps and try everything vaguely hopeful however pointless/ brutal to the patient and maybe it's easier to tackle that in a group.

I’m sorry about your FIL @Newmum738. I also agree that they want family there to break the news, summoning the family for a meeting seems to be doctor code/advance warning that this is an end-of-life situation and they need everyone on board with the plan. We had the same with my dad.

It is interesting the difference between the sexes. I think women would tend to be there to support a loved one, regardless of whether they had capacity or not.

@funnelfan yes, I have noticed a major difference in the approach of males and female across both of our families in dealing with elderly parents. They guys are shocking! DH will go on Monday but pretty much just because I said he shouldn't let his Dad receive that news alone.

@Newmum738 yes, same here. Aside from DH, the men have been largely absent and care has fallen to the women. It's so unjust, and depressingly common.

@Newmum738 sorry to hear your news. I hope DFIL is comfortable.