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.

@SockFluffInTheBath so pleased for your DD and that part of your lives is moving forward. I hope MIL is more consistently comfortable.

@GnomeDePlume solving yesterday’s problem is a great phrase for what we often find ourselves doing!

Trips out from a care home: a year on we’re finding the reality of actually going out is getting harder.

Physically, our frail but mobile person needs time to sit down or stand up, and to get into and out of a car, and regular rests are needed (see added time to sit and stand for each rest) although still walking with the support of a rollator.

Mentally it is like taking a toddler out, calmly repeating where you’re going, what is happening next, getting ready/shoes on takes an age, offering limited choices to avoid an overwhelm tantrum.

Well done to your Dd @SockFluffInTheBath , saw your message in the A levels thread just now. DS got great results today too and is off to his chosen Uni, Southampton. It’s a really positive thing to focus on.

Back at Mum & Dad’s, life just goes creaking on as if they’re immortal. Dad keeps complaining there’s always something to do with house or garden, as well he might at 97, and I have to bite my tongue not to say, Well you should have bloody downsized 20 years ago. Meanwhile Mum won’t hear of getting a cleaner and because she’s a hoarder with probably undiagnosed ADHD or similar, the house permanently looks like it’s just been burgled and is dirty too. But if I offer to help her sort through things she always refuses.

@MotherOfCatBoy huge congratulations to your DS, I hope he has a fantastic time at Southampton.

Well done to everyone's dc A level success!

Well done to the DCs and proud parents. An exciting time ahead of them.

Mum won't answer the phone. It's been a problem for about a year but until Christmas as he used to answer perhaps one time in six. Now it's never. Whenever I try and talk about it she insists she does and she must have just "popped out". I've been trying to phone to let her know when the care home appointments are. I tried Tuesday evening, was too busy yesterday but so far today I've tried 6 times. I'm trying roughly hourly and will carry on until 8 when I'll call her neighbour and ask them to go and put it on her calendar.
We've tried gadgets to help, louder phone, flashing lights etc but they just get put in a cupboard. I'm going to update her social worker as if she can't/won't use the phone now it's a big safety concern.

@countrygirl99 Can she pick up the phone and call you when she needs to? (Double edged sword). If so then at least she can still use it that way?
Appreciate the safety concerns as that’s no good if she’s lying on the floor, and you don’t know the difference if she won’t answer…

@MotherOfCatBoy mum hasn't phoned me or my brothers for about a year. TBH she rarely phoned me all my life. She was phoning British Gas 2 or 3 times a week because she had switched off power to the heating controls so obviously it wasn't coming on. Has that stopped because it's hot or because she can't? Who knows. She told the neighbour she struggles with the new phones (one of the old ones had died and she needs one in each room she uses (won't wear hearing aids, so only hears if in the same room) so they had to be replaced. But when I asked she said "if course I can use it I'm not stupid. I never said that" so 🤷. She refuses to use a fall alarm and thinks a mobile or tablet is broken if it needs charging.
She tells me she goes to the supermarket on the community minibus which she would need to phone so I think next time I'm there I'll check to see if there is Aldi branded items in the cupboard/freezer (though they could be old). She may just be using the corner shop. Just thought I might be able to phone them and ask if she does get the minibus, they might be prepared to talk to me.

Phoned community transport who checked back to the beginning of June. Not only has she not used it in that period but her membership expired 2 months ago.

Fucking goldenballs, words of one syllable are clearly too long!

Sigh. No wise words, only solidarity.

@MotherOfCatBoy and @SockFluffInTheBath congratulations to your DC. Time to celebrate! @SockFluffInTheBath we are taking DD2 to the open day at York next month :-)

I've gone down to my parents to give them new phones SO MANY TIMES that have been recommended as all singing and as all dancing for elderly people ease of use. And multiple times tried to make the mobile work better, clear spam, clear scammers etc etc. Adjusted volume to the max. Tested it with the aged parents. Phew! That's working. Go home with weight lifted.

Only to find out from my sister/my aunt/whoever that mum again can't hear me and we're back to square 1 with me wracking my brains as to what to do. Aaaaaaahhhhhhhh! Had this happen again yesterday.

It's such a basic need isn't it?

@tobee yep. DB2 and I were both there. Got her to phone both our mobiles to check she could make calls and phoned her to check she could pick them up. I suspect the real problem is the refusal to wear her hearing aids so it's always "it's a really bad line" and now when she needs the phone she decides that it's too much bother but thinks it's just this time every time. The hearing aids disappeared after dad died and we can't get her to get more because she's convinced there's nothing wrong with her hearing despite having the TV so loud at the back of the house you can hear it outside the front door.

I feel sorry for my parents neighbours and their young kids. @countrygirl99. I've jumped out of my skin enough times when the BBC News theme starts myself while sitting with them.

It was a bad sign when, about 10 years ago, against my better judgment, my sister persuaded to go on holiday with all of us together. It was an open plan house and my mum & dad insisted on watching the Grand Prix at full blast!! We couldn't hear ourselves think, 4 grandchildren in their teenage years having to endure the noise because it was raining outside.

Think my dad finds the Grand Prix too tricky to follow now. So that's something.

@countrygirl99 and @tobee sounds a lot like my mother tbh. Totally deaf in one ear, very deaf in the other. Can’t get the hang of NHS hearing aids so doesn’t use them and dodges all suggestion of trying others (even Boots or Specsavers or something). TV up to max. Phone problematic. At the moment still in her right mind so that’s something.

@countrygirl99 it’s beginning to sound as though she’s not safe at home, isn’t it…

@countrygirl99 I think you’re doing the right thing looking at care homes. You and DB might have to bundle her into one if you can get him to cooperate…

This reminds me of my mum, she was losing the ability to hold a conversation and she knew it so she avoided it, that was preferable to admitting to me she couldnt follow a conversation or sometimes could not work the phone so for several mo the we carried on a charade. To be fair to mum she blagged it for a long time and had other family members fooled but I am afraid I knew, and I knew she knew and she knew I knew. Genuinely it was ridiculous but I think driven by sheer terror of realising your independence is going because of your mind.

On the positive side I volunteered to be a participant in an Alzheimer's research project. Did some psychological tests for cognitive health and been told they don't need me as they have sufficient people in the cognitively healthy cohort. Very relieved! I was worried as one part you had to say as many words as you could in one minute each beginning with different letters and for A for some reason my brain flipped into Finnish 🤷. I hardly know any Finnish but I think I remembered every word I know beginning with A.

That's interesting about conversation. I don't think DB noticed the reduction in DM's ability to follow a conversation because TBH he has a tendency to pontificate. DM would agree with him (for a quiet life) and so far as DB was concerned a conversation had been had and DM was fine because she was agreeing with him.

It is only since her behaviour has changed that he is starting to recognise that something is wrong. But because the conversation is still one sided I'm not sure he recognises how much DM has declined cognitively.

This is interesting about conversation as I’ve noticed the same thing with Goldenballs sibling and our parent. I’d expressed concern to him that she wasn’t making sense, was repeating herself, sticking to same topic etc. He couldn’t relate to
that at all.

But then I was with him one time they talked on the phone (bearing in mind their phone calls are weeks apart!) and he did almost all of the talking, told her what he was doing, told her all the plans. All she had to do was agree. He thought it was a conversation but it was almost all him!

Aunt was like this and would cycle around safe conversation which became more and more limited as time went on. Also couldn't remember how to answer the phone and would pick it up and say she couldn't hear you, but would be pressing buttons so I think she used to inadvertently put it on mute.

My DDad has never been a man of conversation, but now just nods and says yes most of the time then directs you back to looking for crossword clues. Sometimes will answer a direct question about something simple like do you want ginger nuts or dark chocolate biscuits with your tea?

Interestingly @countrygirl99 I had cognitive impairment after having Covid and was part of a study, that test was one of the ones I failed miserably at the time. After cognitively rehabilitating myself I am able to do that test now, but still sometimes have word finding issues where I can describe the item I am thinking of, but am unable to remember what it is called.

@countrygirl99 aaargh. I've heard similar from a friend about his mother - everything is falling apart physically and mentally and now she can't use the phone. He & his brother have set up an Alexa but his Mum tends not to tidy things like that into the cupboard...

Had a brief (less than a minute I swear) nag at my relative about having a proper ramp put in her front garden. It helps that the gardener has retired and so the garden isn't looking like much to be sentimental about! But it would be much easier if she had no steps. On the flat she's quite fast on her walker!

We had a CallGenie for my Aunt which she hated, but it was how I could check on her if she didn't answer. It Skype's into their TV.

https://smart-life-solutions.co.uk/

Did the Call Genie work well @Choconuttolata ?