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.

Condolences @Thankyouall

I'm very sorry @Thankyouall

I’m sorry for your loss @Thankyouall

@Thankyouall I’m so sorry for your loss. Dementia is so cruel.

Sorry for your loss @Thankyouall. Wishing you strength for the funeral and the tasks ahead.

MIL’s funeral tomorrow. DD is home from uni and raging that all the folk who didn’t come when it was hard will be there dabbing a tear tomorrow. Asked her to keep a lid on it for the service, and she can skip the wake (in PIL’s house) if she likes. DS also coming home, but missed his train this afternoon so running hours late. He’s bringing washing from a 2 week field trip, too.

Feels like we’re on the tipping point of something massive. I still can’t quite believe she’s gone.

Solidarité and a glass of something strong (or tea).

So sorry for your loss @Thankyouall and sending 🌺 @SockFluffInTheBathfrom another graduate.

Thinking of you for tomorrow @SockFluffInTheBath

Wishing you all the best and strength for tomorrow @SockFluffInTheBath.

@SockFluffInTheBath thinking of you today. I hope the send off is as lovely as your MIL

fuckeit hospital sent mum home with promises of a visit from some hub that visits within 2 hours to assess what care she needs. Got to 7pm and no visit. They did ring and say they hadn’t been told she was being discharged which is a lie because they called me and told me she was being discharged today. So they’ll get a bollocking from me today about unsafe discharge. The ward was appalling with bathroom doors being left open, dying lady being force fed and distressed and causing mum and her fellow patients distress. Male staff doing personal care in twos on this lady who can’t consent. I’m so angry about it and so glad mum is home. They left her without painkillers for hours because she was going home and just dumped all her stuff on her bed. I’m ill with a cold/cough/chesty delight and don’t want to give it mum but with no care in place I’ve no choice. Sisters in America and no one else.

@SockFluffInTheBath i hope that your dd finds today more healing than she expected. Obviously you too! Hope she makes it to the wake. My godmother’s funeral healed a couple of small wounds very well, but it’s obviously more difficult when the wounds are bigger.

@Dormit bloody hell, those calls where they inform you why they can’t do what will prevent disaster. I suppose it’s one very small step up from no call at all. In my job Im in a team a bit like that and am sometimes the person who calls the ambulance to send the poor patient back in because the discharge is just not going to hold. I’m sure you would half kill yourself to stop your mum having to go back but if you need to make that call don’t hesitate.

Does this place have one of those rooms where you can go and smash up a load of old stuff to burn off some energy?? Feel like I need it!

So as predicted, one line email from social worker last week "elderly relative discharged, left the ward will be home by 12". No advance warning, no info on whether a care provider has been found, no nothing. Cue panic - elderly relative can't make safe decisions and has been known to flag down random cars when absconding from hospital in the past, so having her turfed out of hospital is less than ideal. Social worker then doesn't answer phone and ghosts all further contact (par for the course...).

Slightly panicky call to the ward, get the most wonderful ward administrator who provides all the info about the care plan, reassures that patient transport took her home with a packed lunch. Then tells us ambulance have made a safeguarding referral as there's no bed. We told the social worker that 2 months ago and asked for an OT assessment - ghosted. Oh well! Then I ask about food - "<Elderly relative's> family member is going to pop in do some shopping tonight" - Umm no he isn't, he's already emailed the social worker saying he's not having any more to do with the situation.

Another panicky call to the interim care provider to see if they can tell us when the carers will be attending, so I could book an online shop to coincide - you'll get a call back from the social worker they say. Of course not! Thankfully the out of hours social worker was fantastic and sorted out an emergency food shop, as of course by the time the nominated social worker hadn't called back, was too late to get an online shopping slot.

Oh, and elderly relative's fall alarm went off in the interim. Fall monitoring service call family member who's already opted out. No idea how they got his number, he didn't consent to having it passed on. Hey ho.

Then, next morning, 8am bright and early, email from social worker saying she's stepping away from the case - no handover, no indication of who will be covering. So now have to scrabble together to get a new worker.

Elderly relative has been out of hospital less than 24 hours by this point. It's going to be a fun few months, isn't it......

Oh God @roundaboutthehillsareshining what a nightmare. There’s space round the back and a pile of chipped crockery. Feel free to smash a few mugs.

Goldenballs refuses to hand over ordering mum's meds but if I ask him to order them by a certain date even a day or two early because I'm away or to fit in with an appointment he reacts like I've asked him to sacrifice one of his GC. So this time I haven't said anything as they were due to arrive by the end of last week and I'm going away for a week on Thursday. Pivotells are loaded up to today so I need to go this evening or she won't have her morning water retention tablets. I have a couple of days extra because of previous late deliveries/missed doses otherwise she would have run out last Friday. Guess what. Yep, no sign of them. Hopefully they will be in the post when it arrives around lunchtime. I've got a couple of appointments and things I need to do. DH is currently incapacitated by a ruptured ligament so I need to leave him with a full fridge and run him to his audiology appointment so I can't do two trips.
When I get back I'm going to speak to mum's GP to see if I can get round this.

I think you should speak to the GP. Your brother is ridiculous. He'd rather get one over on you thsn consider what is best for his mother (and you). What a mean person to deliberately add to your workload and stress.

My gripes are trivial by comparison.

Weekly visit to DM in her care home yesterday. Generally pleasant if totally mixed up. Gave her some flowers and a new top I made for her. Spent the afternoon chatting about this and that. All fine.

Then DB turned up. Asked DM if she had had a nice day, answer 'Not really, no'!.

I know I shouldn't take it personally but it makes me wonder why I bother. Oh and DB told me I should sew a new button on one of DM's cardigans. Except he has lost the button so I will have to replace all the buttons. It's a small thing but yet another example of DB treating me like a domestic servant.

I pushed off and left them to it.

Why can't your brother sew on the buttons?
Post's been. Still no meds.

@countrygirl99 oh God.
Would Pilltime be any good to you? I’m sure most of our elderlies would just put the pouches tidily in a cupboard or the bin.

Visit to mum in the nursing home. Eyes open, but glazed stare throughout. I think her eyes moved once. 2 sips of tea the eighth time I lifted the cup to her lips. When will this non existence end.

Mum has been known to bin parcels she doesn't understand. When dad was ill I had to keep a box of COVID tests in my car for them as she couldn't remember what they were and binned them even when we dropped them off and told her what they were and there have been loads more incidents like that so I don't think getting them delivered to her house will work.
In fact I shudder when I think about the dosette boxes Dad had delivered. Mum emptied an entire month's supply of umpteen different tablets into a bowl.
I think even if we had a medication safe for the carers to use they'd need to be delivered to someone to put them in there or god knows where they would end up.

It's so hard when visits are like that.

Argh!

Sorry for your loss @Thankyouall 💐

@roundaboutthehillsareshining that is terrible, no doubt it will end up with readmission due to an unsafe discharge after all that stress.

@countrygirl99 I would definitely speak to the GP to see if they can be re-ordered without FB involvement, raise your concerns about missed doses if they don't arrive.

@GnomeDePlume I would be inclined to say, you lost the button, you can replace it and so it on if that is so important to you.

@PermanentTemporary so hard to watch someone you love fade.

At the moment my DDad is doing okay with his carers, although I did have to have words the other day after a medication error. I am grateful he is okay as I am unwell with what might be Covid by the symptoms so don't want to go there and give it to him. I have been busy juggling the start of the school year and DS not sleeping after having a rocky start at his new special school, so probably a bit run down.

Un-MN hugs to you

It's unrelenting for so many of you..💐

DB couldn't possibly sew on buttons! That's women's work, alongside making sure DM's clothes are all correctly labelled, tidying up DM's room, sourcing clothes etc.

He's too busy doing the only important job which is visiting DM every day.