Cockroach cafe Winter 2025

[GnomeDePlume]

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/elderly_parents/5360173-cockroach-cafe-summer-2026?page=39&reply=147870717

Here we go. I think we are going to need this

I'm not sure @PermanentTemporary , I think it's the loss of easy mobility which leads to dehydration. Standing up hurts, whether to go and get a drink or go to the toilet, so there is no incentive to drink.

Of course any stay in hospital makes dehydration worse. Having to use a commode with just a curtain for privacy. Would put me off drinking.

Good point @GnomeDePlume regarding the ‘rehab’ unit. My DF was in one several years ago but it became clear very quickly it was simply a halfway house for all sorts of waifs and strays not ill enough to be in hospital but with no real place to return to. Mine was in it for months, I was working away at the time. When I got back after a few months away the lead nurse kept on me and writhing a week I had been asked to organise somewhere for DF to go. On reflection it was absolutely not a ‘rehab’ unit. I’m guessing there are places all over the country like this. There were people recovering from surgery, older people and younger people awaiting housing.

@StillNiceCardiganStick to your guns! I had several months at this time last year of emotional blackmail (see user name!) trying to get me to go and have Christmas at “D”M’s house, involving dragging my family there along with the food, then me doing all the cooking but in a kitchen that isn’t mine, plus providing entertainment for endless people dropping in so she could show off her helpful daughter.

I stuck to our plans - she was invited to ours for Christmas but came up with every excuse under the sun not to come. A younger less determined me would have given in, but I wasn’t going to ruin my children’s Christmas. It got to the week before Christmas and she did a lot of flouncing about how she’d have to spend Christmas on her own. (Her choice if so!).

We had a blissful Christmas with just us there, and eventually saw her in January. She spent Christmas Day with a friend. She was really annoyed about waiting for January but by then we’d made plans with other relatives and friends so she just had to fit in with that.

Good luck! It is so hard when they’re behaving like this.

I haven’t been on here for a while. I’ve been having an attack of sandwich generationitis. The 40s-50s generation (mine) has been more ill than the 70s-80s generation. Which made the 70s-80s generation throw a wobbly as they got less attention and couldn’t believe anyone could be as badly off as them. It’s just Not Fair! The 90+ generation is so out of it with dementia they aren’t aware of any of this. Combined with the primary school generation having the usual round of illnesses and then a whole world of work stuff happening.

Anyone fancy joining me in running away to a remote island but one with excellent facilities, just no way of being in contact with the rest of the world?!

I am already feeling so guilty about Christmas.

Last year we had it at DPs and of course I brought all of the food etc.. This year we had planned to go down to SILs - there are multi generations, we have family games. I have booked the Premier Inn and the dog sitter, but I don’t know if I can do it. If there was just one of them then I definitely would not leave them - and that’s likely to be the scenario in future years. I know a good daughter would be there for them, but it’s just so miserable and they won’t care if it’s Christmas or not. We had devised a plan that we would go up on 23rd December and DH and DS would take out DF and I would stay there with DM as she can’t go out, and we would go up a couple of days after Christmas. I feel our nuclear family deserves a proper break as it’s been such a tough year and DH has done so much for my family, but I also feel horribly selfish for abandoning my ancient DPs on CD .

@EmotionalBlackmailthat sounds like a triple layered sandwich, which is normally a good thing but not so much in this scenario!

@rookiemere you shouldn’t feel guilty, but I understand why you do. We’re under pressure to do a big Christmas at FIL’s like MIL used to do- from the flying monkeys who would simply love to do it themselves except they don’t want to ruin their own Christmas Day. I’ve refused on the grounds that last year was v subdued since MIL didn’t know what was going on, and I’m not having it be like everything carries on now she and her messy dementia are out of the way. DH agreed with me. We’re having a quiet one with our DC, and anyone who wants FIL to have a jolly CD can do it themselves. I’m betting no one will step forward.

In separate news one of MIL’s younger brothers died suddenly today. DH is in shock, I think this is going to knock him right back. It’s 3 months today that MIL died.

Hello. There is apparently one at the hospital where he had the op and he turned it down. It is what it is. Some clinical rehabs are excellent. My mum was in one after brain surgery and they got her back to walk, swallowing, writing and so on after about 3 weeks. Plus she ate shepherds pie every day, gourmet heaven as far as she was concerned!

Hello haven't been on these boards in a while.

Was talking to dsis this morning about ongoing at home care for our parents.

They currently have carers every morning for an hour and every evening for 45 minutes. Mostly getting dad up and then to bed sorting out his hygiene etc, he has urinary incontinence. Then a carer for mum 2 x hours 2 x a week to help with practical stuff; bigger jobs.

Mum has been finding night time tricky with dad as his dementia leads to trying behaviour, waking up, going to the loo and stripping off. Also occasional hallucinations. This obviously disturbs her sleep and is too much for her to deal with physically when it happens.

My dsis was wondering about overnight carers. Anyone know about this? Not someone living in. But is that possible? How does it work?

Thanks!

1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...10.
And breathe.
That's better.

We had overnight carers for a terminally ill relative. They didn’t live in but would come at about 9pm and help to settle for the night. We’d then go off to bed, leaving them sitting up with the relative and dealing with anything that came up in the night. They'd stay until about 7am to hand back over to us. It meant we theoretically got an uninterrupted night’s sleep.

I think CD is so fraught because of the social taboo of “leaving someone on their own” on the Day, and all the ads for the Sally Army etc. guilting us all to ensure our elderlies are hosted.

Whereas the reality, for DM at least, is that they’re not bothered. In 2023 DB came to spend CD with me and mum, and mum wouldn’t get out of bed or even eat a small amount of the food I cooked. Not interested in opening her presents - of course we didn’t get anything from her. Probably the last year that the three of us would celebrate the day together in the family home, such a shame. DB and I had a good catch up, but the following year when DM was in hospital we spent the 25th at our respective homes with our spouses and visited on Boxing Day instead.

i was speaking to someone today who lost a parent this year, and their surviving parent has invites from multiple family and friends, and turned them all down. Said they were never that bothered by Christmas and would rather have a quiet day at home on their own.

Someone I know has had overnight carers for that reason. Not every night but several times a week, which allowed the main carer (wife) to get some undisturbed nights. There was a risk of compete carer breakdown through lack of sleep without it. They were self funding. I think they mainly used a carer already known to them who was willing to do some nights.

Thanks @tesseractor and @EmotionalBlackmail.

I've actually just looked at my parents current care company website and apparently they do do overnight care. There are 2 types: waking and sleeping. Waking the carer stays awake and looks after the person needing care. Asleep the carer sleeps over and is on hand to assist if needed at night.

At the moment I think dad would only require the sleeping one. I'm sure my parents would hate it; well mum would, but if they want to stay in their home I can see that they may have no choice.

How are you doing now @countrygirl99 ?

@tobee fine thanks. Goldenballs had a bit of a meltdown at a situation that he has been making more difficult. I just needed time to phrase my response so it was constructive rather than "haha told you so"😆

@countrygirl99 Goldenballs sounds a nightmare!

He's very pompous and thinks he knows better than every one else and that he does far more than anyone else even though he only actually visits a couple of times a year. He does do a lot of tasks but they are all ones that can be done on the sofa and take a few minutes. Stuff like checking her bank account weekly, annual renewals of insurance, monthly ordering meds. Whereas DB2 and I are regularly doing 2 hour round trips to visit, picking up all those odd jobs like noticing light bulbs/ remote batteries etc need changing, sorting out new socks because somehow she's a sock destroyer, noticing changes that need acting on like has stopped cleaning/has left the full freezer open to defrost etc, researching care home options, taking the full brunt of her moodiness, acting on emergency calls etc. so we just do the small stuff and he does the "important" stuff and tells us what to do regardless of anything else we have going on. DB2 and his partner have an adopted DC with significant autism and is still working, goldenballs and SIL are both retired and made the decision to move 5 hours away after dad died, knowing mum had Alzheimer's. My parents only moved to where she lives 20 years ago because goldenballs moved there for work.

@tobeeI looked at the overnight care costs - not that DPs have accepted that they need it. It was very expensive particularly for overnight waking and I do wonder if the person is at the stage of needing that if it might be better for them to have respite care in a care home to give everyone a proper break as the difference in cost between a week of that and overnights wasn’t much. Currently we have done neither, but I find it reassuring to investigate the options so I am prepared.

Thats of course assuming everyone is still rational and willing to do what might be best for everyone, which is rarely the case.

I realised that was a stupid thing to say as obviously someone with dementia can’t make lucid decisions. I still keep waiting for my DPs to realise how much stress they are putting on me and stop because of course it is an unreasonable burden, but they can’t because they don’t really know, or at least DF doesn’t as he thinks he is fine.

@rookiemere I recognise that feeling. Goldenballs melt down yesterday was because I wouldn't go and explain something to mum but what's the point in dropping everything to explain something when she'll have forgotten what I said before I'm out of the house having denied the problem exists when I'm talking to her, as she goes every time But still we hope that just once it will get through.

This makes so much sense - as in, it is a clear explanation or our own disappointing experience, nonsensical logic though. It was exactly the same with my dm, we were (her included) so excited for her to get some rehabilitation but instead she was just parked in whatever slot they had in the community hospital till the discharge care package went through, then once it did , aggressively served an eviction notice with just hours to prepare. Horrible deception..

Of course she deteriorated further in that time - deterioration that at 90-odd is proving partly irreversible. So wasteful and counterproductive.

And the care package would not have facilitated her re-mobilising whatsoever, would have been nappies and bed bound for ever so far as I could tell. Thanks to her haveing her own resources we set up a private care package actually geared around helping her to use the commode when she needed it then graduate to using the toilet (ie walk into another room) then graduate to taking herself to the loo unattended. Social services flying visits would not have enabled that at all - so dreadful for people who can't buy in useful help 😥

With hindsight of course we should have arranged to discharge her as soon as medically fit (about a week sooner) with her own care arrangements but a) we thought she was going to get actual physio type help and b) we thought the care package would be geared around her needs to re-mobilise so it didn't occur to us it would be necessary.

I am so angry at the way they lie to you.

@countrygirl99I can see now why you are so annoyed! Yes a 2 hour round trip plus the actual visit in the middle to deliver some message that won’t get through anyway. I wouldn’t bother counting to 10 ! Or probably the more mature response is to just ignore his stupid nonsense. Bet he tells everyone how much he does for his poor old elderly DM. If I just had the admin to do I would be delighted.

My lovely DM is finally dying. I’ve been expecting for it for years. But now that it’s here I’m a mess.

She’s had secondary, incurable cancer for many years and moved into a nursing home 18 months ago due to lack of mobility/falling. The care is good, the staff lovely despite being run off their feet. Approx 8 weeks ago DM started to physically and cognitively decline. Her mobility got worse, so I couldn’t transfer her from her wheelchair to my car, which meant an end to shopping trips, coffee shops and pub lunches. Usually, just a week without an outing would have been cause for riot, but DM didn’t seem to be bothered.

She became more withdrawn - not engaging with the organised activities as she did and seemed somehow ‘far away’. The staff noticed. I noticed. But it’s clear now that DM isn’t just “tired today”, or “a bit under the weather”. She’s started the process of dying. The suspicion is that cancer has spread to her brain. We won’t know unless she has brain scans, but that isn’t in her best interests.

She’s in bed, mostly asleep. When she’s awake she’s often elsewhere, or referring to things from many years ago, or not making sense at all. She’s nauseous, not eating, barely drinking. So fragile and thin. My lovely Mom.

I’m not scared. I know she’s not scared. She’s wanted to be with DF since he suddenly died some years back. I know her wishes, have POA and the nursing home is supportive and very clear on what needs to happen - no ambulances, no pointless interventions, just as many drugs as possible to keep her comfortable. I just hope she will have a swift, painless end.

But, despite knowing this has been coming for a long time and knowing that there’s nothing to be done and that death will be a relief and a release for DM, I am not coping.

I have a lead weight of anxiety on my chest, wake up in the night in a panic and feel sick. The powerlessness is overwhelming. I don’t know if she has weeks or days or hours, which makes it feel worse. Should I try to go about my days as normal? Should I spend every possible minute at her bedside? I don’t want to do the wrong thing, but don’t know what the right thing actually is.

It feels like I’m constantly on the verge of bursting into tears, screaming or punching someone. It’s difficult to try to be calm and keep a lid on it all. On one hand it will be a relief when DM reaches the end of her journey, but on the other hand part of my brain is screaming that I don’t want to lose my best friend.

Has anyone been in a similar situation, please? Can anyone suggest how long she might have left? I know that nobody can say for sure.