🪳 🪳 🪳 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.

🤢 @countrygirl99 not what you needed today. I have been working today, but visiting my Dad in hospital at the moment. He seems to be improving still. Awaiting more tests which may not happen until Friday.

Merry Christmas to all in the Cockroach 🪳 Cafe 🎄 🎁

We've had food hygiene issues before with rotten food accumulating in the fridge but substantially reduced them with the carers checking a couple of times a week and the weekly cleaner wiping the fridge shelves as an excuse for a thorough check. This is one we haven't picked up on before. The freezer door was wedged open, ironically with a bottle of bleach, as she couldn't open the shelf flaps. But each shelf was a solid block of ice and that's why the flaps wouldn't open. Pretty clear that the freezer had defrosted and then refrozen multiple times. And there were a lot of fish fingers and fish pies in there 🤮.

I refused to spend Christmas at my relative's since the year she roasted a turkey, then left it sitting out for five days uncovered whilst she sawed bits of it each day and kept offering it to us as more meals!

Went to the yard on my way home to feed my horse and decided to sniff some horse poo to try and get rid of the smell memory. Helped a bit. Luckily I have some very coconutty hand cream and several applications of that have got rid of the rotten fish smell.

Oh dear, @countrygirl99, that sounds grim. DM roasted a chicken yesterday. I will have to keep a close eye on how long she keeps it for.
She came to lunch today and the plan was to take her to my brother’s but she just didn’t feel up to it. She ate a mammoth lunch and drank two glasses of wine and it took three of us to get her to the car afterwards. We settled her in at home with a cup of tea and a box of chocolates and DB is going up to check in on her later.

Just laughing at the thought of you taking deep lungfuls of steaming horse manure to blot out the stench of your mother's fridge @countrygirl99 It really is bad when it gets to that stage!

Oh dear @countrygirl99 !
I cleaned my parents’ fridge last week and took out two small food caddy size worth of dodgy stuff - either past its date (tubs of soft cheese etc) or actually mouldy - the green mouldy bacon was thé worst, and there was a half full tin of baked beans that had been there so long it had dried and came out in one solid lump.

Things quiet here although they are both very frail now. I picked them up for Christmas lunch at ours, and they both ate their whole dinner and a glass of wine. At least DM actually spoke to DS this year, last year she managed to ignore him (mixture of deafness, oddness and being a cow).

Back from taking them home (4 hours driving today). Flopped in front of the fire, a bit brain dead.

@countrygirl99 I'm sorry to hear about your Christmas day. My Mum also has a disgusting fridge and freezer. Weirdly I don't think she ever gets ill. Even drinking out of date milk etc...

Our day was superficially fine, but it's beyond depressing spending the day with my Mum (Alzheimer's), even though it was my house and family she was at. Last night I had fantasies about me getting seriously ill or dying so I don't need to care for her anymore. It's a bit extreme wish though and very unfair on DH and my children. I'm just so tired.

@FiveFoxes I understand that feeling. We went to mum's because the last 2 Christmas's she's got really confused at ours and collecting her and taking her back is a good 4 hours driving. If only we'd done the driving we wouldn't have found the grim freezer and the filthy plates.

My mum would also have a disgusting fridge and microwave if it weren't for her amazing cleaner who makes sure she doesn't have rotten food lying around! Thanks goodness for all the support people 🙏🏼 Hope you all managed to have a happy Christmas despite all that you're dealing with xxx

We've largely solved the fridge grottiness by having a cleaner who wipes the shelves each week which means she can bin anything grim. Before that mum used to get angry with the carers when they tried to check. We hadn't picked up the freezer issue before but now need to give that some thought. I'm tempted to remove it there were several strange items in there that you wouldn't expect to find in a freezer.

Oh yeurch, what did you find in there?!

A towel, several blocks of cathedral city cheese and a pack of I Can't Believe it's Not Butter. Though the odd things were the least objectionable. It was the umpteen packs of fish fingers that had obviously defrosted and been refrozen multiple times to the point the boxes were falling apart and the unidentifiable brown slimey blobs that were most nauseating.

@FiveFoxes I understand that thought completely. Have had similar at times.
Am going to speak to my GP in the new year about it.

Practically, I think I’m going to engage a cleaner for DM in the new year. There’s some work happening to remedy damp in her house in January so once that is done I’m going to have a good sort out of the downstairs so that she can live entirely on one floor. If only she’d downsized to a bungalow like DF wanted years ago.

DH and I managed to have a lovely chilled Christmas Eve and Christmas Day at home, the first time ever in our 10 year marriage. I didn’t call the hospital to see how mum was, on the basis they’d call me if there was anything I needed to know. I didn’t even feel guilty.

back at the hospital now, no significant change in mum, she’s ok and still under physio assessment.

DH, BIL and FIL visited MIL in care home today and it was pleasant for about 10 minutes and then she started becoming aggressive and they left. The meds they have put her on could possibly start working in about 2-3 weeks. We then went for a buffet at FIL's assisted living - he is becoming more ghost like with his dementia. He's functioning but there is no conversation - its like he's there but not there - like a half person. Its hard to describe. So I think this is the last time we will all go there as there's no point - he just sits and eats and doesn't join in with anyone. We will meet and have a meal with BIL and family on our own from now on and visit fil seperately.

Erm, I have a towel, cheese and butter in my freezer. The towel is because the freezer's old and occasionally males a puddle on the floor - better to absorb it inside than have it leak out. Cheese and butter are just spares. So I don't think those are, in themselves, odd. The general picture of unusability is another matter.

For future reference, coffee ground and ketchup - not together - are pretty good at washing unpleasant smells out of skin. And a bit nicer than horse manure.

@I8toys your description of your FIL fits my mum too. There but not there. I have also described her as a living ghost before now. She seems quite comfy in hospital with being waited in hand and foot, and it took two nurses to change her nightie and get her from the chair to the bed. She could do it herself if she tried but the nurses had a bay of patients to attend to and haven’t all day to encourage her like the physios.

I’ve nearly got all of the blood out of her carpets at home, one more round of attack with vanish and the carpet cleaner will probably do it.

I’ve deployed ketchup many times whe the dogs have rolled in fox poo.

DM wee'd in the car today! Didn't seem to know. Sadly, I think this might be the last time she comes to visit 🙄

Just had my arm up to the elbow in wee and shit unblocking DMs loo because she’s been putting incontinence pads down it. Again. Have read her the riot act again. She’s wailing and I feel unutterably cruel.

Love the coffee and ketchup tips thanks @NoBinturongsHereMate and @BestIsWest.

Reading everyone’s experiences has helped me remember how far we’ve come in the last couple of years. We had freezer fun, food poisoning risk, unblocked toilets and endless laundry due to incontinence along the way too. DF is doing so much better physically now he’s in 24 hour care, although there are still some challenges mentally.

Glad to hear @funnelfan managed to have a nice Christmas after such a draining year.

@BestIsWest I feel your pain! I've had words with DM today for leaving soaked incontinence pants lying around when I provided a bin. DH also had words with her because he had to clean up after a wee incident in the car yesterday and she had another accident at lunch today and wasn't wearing her special pants!

Advice needed - DM definitely needs support and I don't know if carers are enough. They seem to to she's fine because she can dress herself but she leaves soaking incontinence pads all over the house, wees on the sofa and in her clothes which she then dries and it in again 🙈

She clearly needs help but I'm struggling to know what sort. Does anyone have any experience that might help me?

Can you pin a picture of the pads with a big Red Cross through them and stick it above the toilet with NO written above. Sometimes pictures can help especially if short term memory is an issue. Big hugs to you for having to do this. I believe Amazon sell long armed disposable gloves.

Can't you just dispense with knickers (disappear them) and pads altogether and insist she uses the incontinence pants at all times instead of underwear @Newmum738 ? It's an awful thing to have to witness and clean up after. And surely the carers need to know she's basically incontinent?