Cockroach cafe Summer 2025

[BestIsWest]

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.

PipMartin, completely reasonable for your DH to reduce visits. Maybe things will improve and he will be able to increase them at some point.

I have read this whole thread and found myself recognising so much.

DM was transferred to a really nice care home 8 months ago at the end of a 3 month hospital stay after a fall resulting in a hip fracture.

Prior to this DM had been living independently. In fact the fall was when she was walking home with her shopping.

The person we got back is just a shell. She is wheelchair bound with a catheter. Doesn't know where she is, doesn't know when she is. On Sunday she was crying as she wanted to go home to husband and children (DF died over 30 years ago, I'm the youngest of her DCs at 58). My suspicion is vascular dementia but no diagnosis.

It's all so frustrating! Not DM, she is how she is but sodding DBs. We have LPAs in place but DB1 doesn't want DM's capacity assessed. Every time I say we need to get it done he comes out with another crappy excuse.

I think his problem is that he doesn't like any sort of change or to not be in control. But at the same time he doesn't want responsibility.

He didn't want to go and look at care homes. That was left to me. He now complains about every aspect of DM's care constantly but offers no solutions, just snipes.

DB2 visits once in a blue moon but adds to the sniping when he does visit.

Sorry, rant over.

Very interesting to read of another example of dementia appearing suddenly, possibly associated with trauma like an accident. I always assumed a gradual thing, wrongly obviously. A brain scan showed no trace of any evidence or damage following MIL's accident that might have explained why she crashed the car, or was so changed after the accident. But we have been in a different world ever since. How dramatically life can change

I think, at least for my DM, that a number of things came into play: the shock of the fall then surgery, a chaotic hospital stay (she changed ward/unit every couple of weeks), repeated UTIs.

DM at 86 already had a number of underlying issues (a heart condition plus diabetes). Her hospital stay made these worse: dehydration and malnutrition especially. She had a minor stroke, perpetual UTIs with accompanying delirium.

The hospital system is so siloed. It just doesn't work where someone has a number of fairly serious issues. No one could decide where DM belonged so they just moved her on to the next department. This of course added to the confusion for DM.

Quite possibly DM was already showing the early signs of dementia. She was getting more forgetful. The hospital stay and accompanying crises crystallised it then gave it a firm shove down the road.

I think that's an area of difficulty that you barely hear about @GnomeDePlume. All the different issues the elderly often have. I should imagine, as people live longer and longer, this will get more of an issue. But hopefully ordinary people in the population will be aware and primed to look out. HCP will be more tuned in. But resources will be more stretched.

DF had delirium in hospital after his minor heart attack and we'd not heard of it in this context before. It was also 2020 so Covid restrictions meant no one could visit to compound the issue. He'd also never had a hospital stay before.

Do nhs hospitals still have "geriatric wards"? Or as that not considered a useful thing any more?

Actually I just googled myself and see that they do still exist; at my local hospital at least

My DAunt first exhibited « proper » dementia after a fall which broke her shoulder and she was in hospital for some time. She couldn’t remember how she got there and was totally confused by hospital. She never really recovered, it was the start of a 2 year slide from there. Before that she had been repetitive and maybe struggling slightly but after the fall it hastened everything and she was never the same person again.

☹️ @MotherOfCatBoy

I believe hearing difficulties can contribute to dementia issues as well; that's not talked about much either. Makes sense though.

that's not talked about much - elderly care and life experience isn't talked about much at all.

Lots of talk about living longer but not what that entails for people personally. And in society.

Dad was on an elder care ward but there was at least one nurse that didn't understand dementia. It was during COVID so no visitors. He didn't have it but she couldn't understand that she couldn't expect mum to remember anything and pass updates to family even though his notes said all updates to DB as wife has Alzheimer's. Caused total chaos when she phoned mum about discharge arrangements and the nurse couldn't understand why.

When MIL was admitted after falling and being diagnosed with leukaemia she was moved from the dementia ward to a ward for elderly people with cancer (can’t remember the proper term) and they had no idea how to handle her Alzheimer’s. They said she was uncooperative because when they left food and meds on her tray she couldn’t take them unassisted. The system wouldn’t pay for her live in carer to be with her as she was being cared for in hospital 🙄 so we paid for her carer to do day shift while MIL was in. It was utterly shambolic. The ward sister stood with her hands on her hips asking DH why she wouldn’t eat. More and more these days I find myself filling with rage.

@SockFluffInTheBath totally get the rage.

The silo system in hospital creates the comorbidity conundrum. Which ward to put them in when they have several things wrong. We found that DM was viewed as a 'bed blocker' everywhere she was put. What is wrong with her isnt curable. Essentially she is old and various things are slowly giving up.

I did the respect form for DM this week - another admin task delegated by DB. We now have to wait to find out if my say so is good enough or if it will need DM's sign off.

This could be tricky, DM doesnt know she is in a care home. She doesnt know she is 86. She doesnt remember that she cant walk any more. She doesnt remember any of her hospital stays. She doesnt remember the absolute hell of being in a busy, noisy A&E through the night.

I've got a carer info form to fill in for mum. I did a rough copy and then a neat, edited for truthfulness copy for her to sign. Except she won't because the "my routine section" doesn't have the previously regular activities that she doesn't do now either because they haven't run for nearly 2 years or she left that club when she moved away 20 years ago. And the 2 year one she insists her friend picks her up and goes with her except her friend died 3 months ago having been very ill for a few months prior. So it's still in my bag awaiting an opportune moment. As is the Respect form that she won't sign because it says she has Alzheimer's and she insists that's wrong.

DM was in a reablement ward for the elderly for about 6 weeks earlier this year and they were pretty good to be fair. She wasn’t, playing merry hell that they were keeping her prisoner in there but the care was excellent. They were understaffed though imho.

A couple of positives:

• now that DM has lost much of the social veneer it turns out she isn't racist!
• she finds Clarkson's Farm very soothing. The swearing doesn't worry her (she used to be very 'shocked' by bad language). I am tempted to write to Jeremy to say that his programme should be piped into care homes as a kind of background sedative.

A positive (of sorts) here too. I put ‘A Very Royal Scandal’ on for DM about the Emily Maitlis interview with Prince Andrew and not only was she riveted, she was able to tell me all about Epstein and Trump. So she is taking in some things (just not anything I tell her).

I might try Clarkson’s farm next.

Got to be better than endless bloody Escape to the Country!!

MIL likes quizzes. Tipping Point and The Chase seem to be on her TV on a continuous loop.

I wish my Dad would watch TV in the day, but it has never been part of his routine so he listens to the radio and does crosswords that he can't read and then doesn't know the answers anyway so phones for all the answers. He likes period dramas and travel and nature programs in the evening, I am pretty sure he sleeps through most of them.

Our trust has the Complex Medicine Unit. It’s essentially 4 geratology wards in a group. A very good idea.

(offers AF beer to all)
Currently driving back from a quickly-planned visit. We were (still are) going to go down next week and take her to a lunch with her sister-in-law, so we didn't have a visit in the calendar this week.
But the texts seemed like they could be tipping over from "busy and engaged" to "about to get worked up about something", and my OH wisely said, "we're free in the afternoon, we could go down...'

A relatively short visit but still over five hours.
Nothing (too!) bad ... but it probably WAS a good idea.

@GnomeDePlume what would happen if you did what you pleased and "didn't recall" whatever a DB said if you deemed it unhelpful? I mean - being so busy, it must be difficult to remember EVERYTHING (cough).

@MysterOfwomanY unfortunately DB and I only communicate by text. There would be a record!

To be fair to DB1, he visits DM 6 days out of 7. He was doing this before any of this started (single, retired). I visit 1/7 (work f/t). Now, he sees visiting DM as some sort of sacred duty. Nothing is allowed to get in the way of it. This is his justification for leaving all admin type jobs to me.

The only exception to the admin falling to me rule is managing DM's finances which he keeps to himself (control).

DB2 visits DM occasionally but only when accompanied by DB1. I'm not sure if this is DB1 wanting to chaperone DB2 or DB2 not wanting to go alone. Other than that DB2 has nothing to do with the situation.

My df used to like to watch tennis, rugby, formula 1, old films, classical music concerts and opera, jazz, the news and current affairs programmes.

Now he's gone off most of that lot and only really watches David Attenborough type programmes. I think he finds the rest hard to hear properly (despite full blast volume and subtitles). Dm says he likes a programme and then goes off it. A bit like a toddler and food they will eat I suppose.

On Monday evening mum rang me and said she couldn't remember lots of things today but when I asked her to say what she wanted me to do she couldn't hear me. She and I tried multiple times, calling and calling, and still she couldn't hear me. Her phone volume has been an issue before. I was yelling top of my voice "TELL ME WHAT YOU NEED?!" But she just said "I can't hear you!" I thought well it could be she can't remember her supermarket order date or similar. So not too worrying. Or it could mean she couldn't remember anything at all. I messaged my sister for the number of an a neighbour of mum's who has helped before by checking on my parents but my sister was at an event, phone off. So in the end dd and I drove down to mum's because I was too worried it was something serious.

We got there at 10.30pm. Dad was long in bed and asleep. Mum was watching a programme about Hiroshima! So that was jolly!! Anyway, she was really pleased we went down and she said she was fine but both her mobile and landline weren't working. Dd and I sorted them out and had a chat and left mum happy after a bit.

I was reasonably happy that mum was all right. But then I got a call early the next morning from mum's older sister who was worried about mum. So I had to help my aunt not worry about my mum. But even though I'd seen my mum since my aunt had spoken to her on the phone, I felt worried again about mum. My sister phoned mum the next day and said my mum sounded much the best she's done since her stroke.

My mum's carer came today. Unlike when dad had his carer I don't have access to the carer update app. I keep thinking I should sign up to it but then worry it would be intrusive. I don't know - that's probably silly isn't it? I'm sure it would be fine really.

DM likes David Attenborough too and Gordon Buchanan. Anything with Monty Don or Simon Reeves or the Von Tulleken brothers more historical stuff like the plague. She was very excited about the new Pompeii program on BBC2. However she can’t plan and can’t really remember how to use the remote control so nine times out of ten when I go there it’s Tipping Point, Bargain Hunt or Escape to the Country. I try and always leave her with something more interesting on.

I had lunch out today with my lovely friend so that was a welcome break. She’s been there too with her DM. I had coffee this week with a new friend who is going through a similar thing with her 94 year old DM so it’s been good to be able to talk to people who understand.

When I was working at a bank we had a support group that met once a month. Sometimes people just chatted, shared ideas and moaned generally but often the meeting was taken up with someone 's major issue or comforting someone toin peices over a major issue. I missed it when I left.