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.

Thinking of you @SockFluffInTheBath. I am glad that as a family you had time to share those moments together.

It is DH's brother's funeral today.

Condolences @SockFluffInTheBath and @Choconuttolata - strength to you both & all those struggling ☕

I’m so sorry @SockFluffInTheBath. The crisis is over now. Sending 🌺🌺

@Choconuttolatai hope today goes as well as these things can

@SockFluffInTheBath She sounds wonderful, and I’m sure will be much missed. I hope you can rest a bit now, and focus on the good memories you so clearly cherish.

@Choconuttolata must be so hard to lose a sibling, worse than a parent in many ways. Hope your day goes as well as can be expected.
🍷

The madness prevails at my parent’s house. DM’s hoarding was demonstrated yesterday by her « sorting out » under the stairs only to carefully place items in a cupboard in the utility room. Hardly anything went out. I looked in the cupboard and the first thing that caught my eye was a bottle of hand steriliser with alcohol, circa 1990, two thirds full, discoloured, and without a lid, so doubtless the alcohol has all evaporated. She wouldn’t throw it out. I give up asking. She also won’t agree to get a cleaner. I ask every month or so but every time she deflects or just says no. The house is squalid and filthy. I know I could clean it, but it would take days, I am not her cleaner, I know from having done it before it will revert to the status quo very quickly, and they can afford professional help. But they refuse, so everything is disgusting, and I mean disgusting. I would like to at least make sure they don’t get food poisoning or something but they insist they can manage.

Instead spent an hour on the phone to Talk Talk arranging their phone to be switched from analog to digital ahead of the small switch off. They have broadband so they just need an engineer and a new router, and their new contract will be cheaper, but it took multiple calls and a text chat to get to the right team. Aaaagh.

@SockFluffInTheBath Im so sorry for your loss. Your MIL sounds lovely.

Tell her you refuse to enter the house as you feel uncomfortable being in that environment and she will have to make other arrangements for the jobs you do .

Hoping this is the latest thread! We’ve had some progress here. My DM has been offered a place in an extra care setting close to me. I’m a little nervous about the cost but I think it’s a good move so I’m going for it and we’ll figure it out. I’ve written to the LA to request assessments to see if she can get any help with costs. DH is in a dispute with DMiL’s LA because they threatened her with prison for not paying DFiL’s care bill although he has passed and is insolvent. DH has been able to use this to get her much needed support so she had an OT assessment this week which proves her need for support and she is on an extra care waiting list now too. Hopefully she will get in quickly! I don’t usually come here with positive news so thought it worth sharing!

Oh that’s good news @Newmum738 i hope they both find them ok.

@SockFluffInTheBath I’m so sorry for your loss, also glad you were able to be with her in final hours. I hope you can get some rest yourself 💐

@Choconuttolatai hope today went as well as it could have

I don’t post in here often but just wanted to post “D”M’a latest gem from today.

She’s told the ward that she’s on that her DD’s, me and DSis, can sit with her every morning from 8am till 12pm.

Lovely.

I can see only a few small problems with that.

We both work.

I have a DFIL who is on palliative care, 2 disabled DC and a DH that works erratic hours.

DSis works full-time avd has a DH with a life limiting illness.

Added to the fact that M is an utter cow and couldn’t he less interested in us or our families.

She’s so convincing though that the Ward thought thought we were going to sit with her for 4 hours, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year. DSis had to say, no that won’t be happening and if you think that’s what she needs you need to be talking to SS.

So sorry, SockFluff.

@Choconuttolata I’m sorry, I hope it was reasonably bearable. What a terribly sad thing.

@BunnyRuddington I think if a health professional was given £1 every time they heard that nonsense they would all be retiring by 30! Just tell them the truth and don’t make concessions.

Thank you all for your thoughts. The carer from Hell is finally gone, stripped the food from the kitchen, and left a bible
on her bed 🙄 it’s all going on the list, but that’s for another day. FIL has said he’s going to give MIL’s wedding ring to DD which made us all cry.

@SockFluffInTheBath I am so sorry for your loss.

Good riddance to the carer. What an appalling person yet I bet she sees herself as a shining example. Hopefully some good can come from your complaint.

DM is declining, even DB can now see this. She is very tired all the time. She isn't confused just lives in an alternate reality.

Update from here, both parents are now in full time care, DF has now been classed as end of life for 4 months but still refuses to actually die, instead he's firmly stuck in 1960 something , I don't exist, only my older siblings are occasionally recognised and he thinks cars cost £6.
Meanwhile mum is living with advanced dementia and ordering all the carers around and my dad is still an fing useless b apparently (thankfully the social worker actually listened when we said putting them in the same home was a VERY BAD IDEA) So, both parents are alive , might as well not be, house has gone back to the housing association and life chugs on

@GnomeDePlume Im sorry, it’s so hard to watch.

@Lightuptheroom i know it’s not funny but ‘DF has now been classed as end of life for 4 months but still refuses to actually die, instead he's firmly stuck in 1960 something’ did make me smile. Sounds like they’re both getting what they need, make sure you give yourself what you need too.

I think my terrible sense of humour is all that gets me through , unfortunately his decline was overnight following post operative delirium so there's been a lot of adjusting going on and getting the 'last' call in the middle of the night only for him to rally and carry on. He's also being assessed for continuing health care as keeps pulling his catheter out, unfortunately the hospital completely failed to deal with this problem properly (catheter has been in situ for over 20 years and a nurse decided to tell me they wanted a bed bound 88 year old to use the toilet...)

Sorry for your loss @SockFluffInTheBath

There is something sublimely awful about hospital care of the elderly.

DM was admitted with a fractured hip almost exactly 1 year ago.

@Lightuptheroom DM also slipped very quickly into delirium and what I now believe to be dementia.

I can remember the delirium starting. DM very agitated, nurse saying 'I don't know what's wrong'. I suggested UTI. Hadn't even been thought of yet she was on a ward full of elderly people with catheters! UTI central.

Our local hospital operates an unofficial 2 week rotation policy for elderly patients. Every 2 weeks the patient is moved onto another ward. Often for no discernable reason and with little to no notice. Of course this is distressing to the elderly patient who is left more and more confused.

@Lightuptheroomhumour is so important to get us through.

DM is in hospital but doing great now she’s got 24/7 company and no need to worry about her meals or anything. My sister didn’t make sure she had her walker with her so she’s not be able to mobilise at all. I couldn’t believe it when mum said she was being measured for a zimmer and I was WTF? Why? She was confused then I asked about her walker and she said she’d not got it with her 🙄 She’s awaiting surgery now and will be in for a couple of weeks I think so that’s a rest for me and mentally restful knowing she’s got 24/7 care.

I think that's a bit sweeping. Your local hospital may be sublimely awful, and obviously the whole system is under great pressure, but we had some brilliant hospital care as well as some that was mediocre.

For us what was sublimely awful was the relentless process of extreme ageing and watching people you love turn into unrecognisable caricatures of themselves who are unable to ask for what they need. In a bad hospital that is truly apalling, but even with excellent care and good staffing ratios it is still a total horror show.

Thank you @SockFluffInTheBath, she’s now, reluctantly, agreed to the care package in discharge. We’ll see how that goes later today. It’s the same service that I ended up putting in a complaint about earlier in the year when they were looking after my DAunt, only there wasn’t an awful lot of looking after going on.

I’m glad the Carer from Hell has gone. DFriend had similar last year but she took the jewellery and TV with her!

@LightuptheroomI’m glad the SS listened about having separate care homes. Putting them together sounds like it wouldn’t have been useful at all.

End of life care is hard on you, especially when it’s been so sudden. I hope you’re finding some time for yourself.

@GnomeDePlumeit can be awful can’t it. DM will have been in 3 weeks today although one plus is that they’ve shifted the Consultants around rather than the patients. First Consultant was useless. Second one who arrived last week has ordered a barrage of tests then said he’s happy for her to go home, which is good.

@dormitI can totally understand you feeling like your DM being in Hospital is a break for you

@GnomeDePlume MIL was briefly in a ward for elderly people with cancer and it was as if they’d never seen dementia before. Despite repeatedly being told MIL needed support she was labelled as uncooperative because when they left meds and food on her tray she didn’t know what to do with them. Funding is a massive issue, but attitude and training go a long way too.