Cockroach Café 🪳 🪳 🪳New Year 2025

[MereDintofPandiculation]

Welcome in to the Cockroach Café Bad Daughters’ Room, the rugs and cushions all fresh and clean for the new season.
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.

I’ve not asked for free care but to work all your life and have nothing to show when someone who has never paid in gets free care is a disgraceful system. £1500 a week is astronomical. 23 have 3 hotels full of people getting 3 meals a day and a room who have never paid in a penny.

We have 3 hotels I should say

@Frostine , the thing is whilst she has always been an incredibly difficult woman and not always a particularly nice mother, I'm not sure how much she is in control of her behaviour now given her advancing Alzheimer's? And so it feels like I should be understanding, given that she's a frail and scared old lady. If not, I would be punishing her for something she can't necessarily control.
But then on the other hand she was never remotely understanding to me when I needed it. Plus she only does it with me and always seems to manage to apologise later.
God, the FOG has got me good and proper!
That feels so much better for writing it down - and next time, I will (gently) take my leave. Thankyou - I needed to work this through!

£1500 a week only works out at £8.90 an hour though. It's 24/7 care, all that heating, all the food, laundry, staff costs, insurance, building maintenance.

@StripyMug I find I can tell when DM has an element of choice because she is not rude or nasty to my DH or DS, and I have seen her be nice as pie to NHS professionals. She just saves up the insults, bad manners, and ignoring for me. When she’s at her worst, it’s carefully when there is no one else around to witness what she says to me. Therefore I’ve learned over the years on those occasions to just walk out the room and disengage, sometimes leave altogether. I still do things for her and still continue the next week, but I won’t continue a conversation if she gets like that.

It did make me laugh though - one of the other residents who I see whenever I visit mum looked me up and down and pronounced " Well, you look much better today!" I didn't really respond (I was a bit taken aback as I've never actually spoken to her) and she said " Yes, much better than your usual get-up, which is awful!"
I explained that is my work uniform but she grimaced and just stared at me, so I said "Ok, bye then" and shut the door. Bloody cheek! 🤣

Yes, in the thread that got filled up on AIBU on the topic of avoiding care home fees I think many were conflating the costs of care and the costs associated with housing.

i think it’s a reasonable point to debate to have on how much people should be expected to pay towards care and how it should be funded in the future. But should people be also expected to have free housing as well as free care? If you “won” the dementia lottery and managed perfectly well at home, you would still be paying for your utilities, council tax, maintenance (or rent), insurance, food and all the other necessary costs for running a household. So I think it’s reasonable to expect people to still pay their share of those costs when housed in a care home - or to surrender their benefits that pay for those if on a low income. From that perspective it’s probably cheaper than staying in your own home anyway.

If care homes could be transparent on how much of their charge is board and lodgings and how much is related to care then maybe that world be helpful to the debate. I suspect it’s not that easy though.

That's terrible but also so funny - getting the mum style criticism from a total stranger!

Will we lose our filters and be as critical of our own kids, I wonder? I really hope not.

Yes @funnelfan that! I've never attempted to work out the divide between home costs and care costs for my elderly relative in care at the moment. She chose to move into a home and the difference in terms of the amount of things to deal with and pay for (what someone younger would probably have called the mental load!) is amazing. No more having to pay gardener, cleaner, handyman to do the gutters, utility bills for someone living on their own in a big house, council tax, insurance, other house maintenance, organise Wiltshire Farm Foods, organise medical appointments and get her there, Yes, some of those were on direct debit but you still have to check the amount is correct and the readings accurate.

£8.90 an hour feels like a bargain!

Elderly people who require care/care home are the only people who have to surrender their homes and savings to receive this care. I’m not disputing paying towards it but I do think the system is broken when people in other mental health facilities/those who never worked pay for nothing. It costs the same if not more to house a prisoner! Anyway all entitled to an opinion but I won’t change mine.

Yes @EmotionalBlackmail The relief from the burden of everything else is already lighter. I’m still going to have to sort the house out but I can do that in my own time, knowing it’s all ok and mums not actively making it worse by daft stuff like flooding the bathroom again.

Case in point, I’m heading over shortly to see mum. Today the home is having one of their monthly family days, where they have little activities and a 3 course sit down meal and each resident can invite 2 guests. They want me to come because it’s a good way of getting to know everyone and they encourage the families to chat in their own WhatsApp group for support etc.

Mum might find it all a bit much but may be ok if I’m there. Either way it will be good for me. And it’s all included in her fees, nothing extra to pay. I’m impressed that this home go out of their way to foster a family/community atmosphere.

I'm very much of the view that we should all be paying 2% into a new ring fenced state owned insurance system allocated purely for social care after the age of 40 - and this includes people on benefits too .

This can be utilised then if care is needed at home or a care home -

Homes should also be regulated on charges too as part of it - personally I would make them state controlled too but that's easier said than done-

No taking peoples assets or any money they have , no 'you get the really hotel like one whilst Jim gets the one a step up from prison- they should all be of a certain standard and any that aren't should 'fail' and be bought out by the state and brought up to standard.

The whole system at the moment is nuts- it's unfair on those who have no money for all kinds of reasons and are often getting sub standard placements or family totally overburdened as options are very limited and it's extremely unfair on those with cash and assets too - and ends up with people doing unwise stuff to try and hide cash and assets that then creates problems down the line- it's also turning many old people into complete misers as rightly they are panicking about cash in case they need care - many are still 'fully there' and very aware of this issue - I think many would be far more willing to help younger family too without this worry over their head

Totally agree 👏

I was moaning about having to fix a recently working iPad, wasn't I. Did that happen? No, because she's back in hospital again.
Saw her today and she seemed reasonably "up", so hopefully they'll buff her up and send her home some time next week.

Very much off the stiff-upper-lip generation, so she didn't say this yesterday when she phoned to tell me where she was and why, but today she said, "I wrote a note for you in drafts in case I didn't make it". Glad I didn't have to read it :/

The hospital does seem to look after them reasonably well - I'm impressed and relieved.

... My Dad was one for winding me up - as PPs have said, he'd do it to people who were close. Knowing his family history I think it was a maladaptive attention seeking strategy developed during an insecure childhood. In the end I would react with stony silence to it, which worked as well as anything. I was luckier than some in that it was wind-up material rather than meanness, but I still... just wanted him to be nice to me!

I can relate to this @FiniteSagacity, my parents are trying to tell me the carers don’t do anything and my mum can change my dad’s pads and handle all the medication.

She can barely do her own meds, there is no way she is going to be doing his too, never mind having the strength to manoeuvre him round the bed!

Having one of those days where I think I'll just pour the tonic straight into the gin bottle and drink it through a straw. Just stupid avoidable issues where people aren't doing what they are supposed to and then expecting me to magic up solutions to the resulting mess. All batted straight back but it's been WTF every time the phone rings.

Ah @countrygirl99 those days are grim. Pour yourself a large one while reflecting you have survived the wilful stupidity of some people. I had one of those days yesterday. I do wonder sometimes how the human race has survived this far.

Sorry to hear that @countrygirl99 , was too tired to join in even though I needed gin last night.

DDad has been difficult this week calling multiple times an evening demanding we go up to his because he has pressed the wrong button on his TV and it now isn't working or wants someone to change the channel.

Found out yesterday he has been refusing carers permission to check/change him even though he is completely incontinent of urine and faeces and has a prolapse that risks getting infected if not cleaned properly. I seem to be spending my days off always sorting out stuff for him.

Also has been very abrupt and rude with DH bossing him around like he is his servant and refusing to go up to bed when he goes in the evening. DH is knackered. I told him yesterday we are adding in a fourth call and if he doesn't want to go up to bed with the carer then he goes up on his own to bed or stays on the sofa we will not be continuing to come up in the late evening anymore once carers are in place, it has been nearly a month since he came out of hospital and the arrangement that we would help him upstairs to bed was only meant to be for a few days until he got used to the stairs again. He has been going upstairs in the day on his own but didn't tell us because he wanted DH to continue coming at night.

@Choconuttolata @SockFluffInTheBath it's so frustrating isn't it. I've reached the stage of knowing that whoever speaks to mum or whatever appointments I take her to she won't follow any advice so it won't prevent/delay any crisis so I might as well save my energy for the inevitable emergency. I'm not local so even a 15 minute appointment takes half a day. It doesn't stop various agencies, who have recently confirmed mum has capacity, phoning me to nag me about stuff or just doing stupid stuff like making arrangements directly with her when they know she will have forgotten by the time she puts the phone down or decide it's not really necessary - we can't work out which at the moment there's evidence both ways so could be a mix. If we don't know somethingis meant to be happening or she has cancelled we can't take appropriate actions like cancelling booked transport/ reminding her.

I’m now three weeks into mum being in a home and I can’t recommend it enough. I mean the home and the staff are fab, but the weight that’s lifted off me is huge. DB is visiting her this week and he’s been updating me and I suddenly realised - someone else is now doing the noticing when something isn’t right, and not only that, they are able to do something about it and it’s all sorted by the time I hear about it.

Things like - she was coughing when eating and drinking, they brought in their speech therapist and she’s now on a soft diet/thickeners in her drinks. They will liaise with the hospital for her next appointment and take her there. All the admin and house stuff is a doddle by comparison.

I’m off the bad daughter’s bench at last and into a new, probably last, phase in supporting mum. Life’s a reet bugger isn’t it, as dad would say.

@funnelfan so pleased to hear your update. I second the feeling - my Dad has been in full time nursing care for over 13 months now. When he was admitted we genuinely thought he would not last more than 6 weeks. He has ‘thrived’. He is well fed, entertained and most of all is cared for so well by the staff. Sadly as some of my threads and posts tell I remain on the bad daughter bench as I am still dealing with my impossible mother.

These homes are amazing and the staff are angels. So pleased for you.

So DMIL age 90 has been admitted to hospital. She lives 250 miles away and getting information about what's wrong with her via phone is really difficult. Surely it's not unusual for families to live a distance away these days?
We cannot "just pop in a speak to the doctor between 10am and 12 noon".
Last time she was in hospital (in 2023) she was there for 6 weeks.
We have lots of questions, but all we hear is that they are doing "tests".
What we want to know is, is this the beginning of the end or not? Will her current care package (carers 4 times a day etc) be sufficient or will she need full-time nursing care?
It also means that my DM who is "just about managing in her own home" will be moved down our priority list (again).
We have a bottle of wine on stand-by for this evening.

I have come to hate the phrase "can you pop in" more than any other. My distance isn't as great as yours but "popping in" is still over 3 hours., just for a walk in and woke out again.
Are you sure 1 bottle will be enough?

It seems like health and care for older people is still designed around an old fashioned model of an available wife/daughter who can "just pop in" and is nearby, available, not working. Just hasn't kept up with the huge social and economic changes in family and work life of the last 60 years. So depressing

The alcohol content of this bottle is 14%, so it should be enough.