Cockroach cafe - Spring in autumn

[GnomeDePlume]

A new thread for those of us dealing with elderly family members. All welcome.

A place to rant, discuss, vent, decompress. No judgement just solidarity.

@GnomeDePlume thinking of you.

@GnomeDePlume settled and comfortable is good, she will be able to hear you even if she isn't awake, if she has a favourite book then reading to her or playing music she likes is something that she can appreciate.

@StillNiceCardigan the respite option sounds like a good one, hopefully all goes well and your MIL can go on Tuesday.

@Raven08 the hazard of visiting. I also caught something both times DF has been in recently. A&E and the wards were rife with 'flu. Look after yourself.

@Dormit hope you and your kids are doing okay and that your DM is doing better.

DF still really confused here, the delirium has improved since being home, there are more lucid periods, but he is still not right. He tried to go to the toilet on his bedside table rather than the commode when I visited yesterday. Also keeps leaping up out of sleep quickly off his chair, his blood pressure drops quickly when he does this and he is trying to move furniture looking for the commode when confused. He is high risk for another fall. I dipped his urine again yesterday as he is presenting similar signs as he did prior to his last admission, but it was clear, might be too early so will check again tomorrow.

@Choconuttolata
I must admit I'm very glad mum is in hospital now and (hopefully!) won't fall - I was so worried whilst she was still at home.
I'm assuming its Flu - I feel absolutely dreadful 😷
Told my sister I probably wouldn't make visiting on Tuesday (I have to fit around her and my brother 🙄) and she's just sent me a text planning the week with me going on...you guessed it...Tuesday! 🙄
Sigh.

@Raven08 no one wants you on the ward spreading 🦠🤧 to vulnerable patients, so your sister and brother will have to cope without you until you are better. Like you say luckily your DM is in hospital and there are people looking after her so take your time to get well, juggling being unwell and trying to manage visits and discharge planning saps all your energy. This is why I am still off work because I didn't get proper rest and recovery time and it has knocked me for six. Hope you feel better soon

Oh, I'm sorry to hear that x
I'm definitely not going in until I'm better - there are two even more frail ladies than mum in her bay.
Mums ok about it tbh, she doesn't want it either 😷
I just told my sister I'm won'tunlikely to make Tuesday visiting.
Physios are seeing mum tomorrow and I've sent photos of the flat.
Hoping haematology have some advice/ideas

We’ve had a scare today, think I need to get funeral directors checked out too, DF became very pale, lost nearly all his speech, very restless, hardly eating and the nurse at the CH gently started talking about end of life care. However the out of hours doc came and checked him out and said he suspected a UTI (he had one 10 days or so ago but maybe the ABs weren’t quite the right ones) so a different lot and he was sleeping peacefully when we left. He has made it clear he does not want to go into hospital again but we are having trouble getting Mum to understand that (he has capacity so it is his choice).

@ElderlyDilemmas very difficult for you. It is frightening how UTIs can present themselves in the elderly.

For my DM, repeated and severe UTIs contributed to the advancing of her vascular dementia.

True @GnomeDePlume my DF is still not right after his, delirium still present and worse at night.
He couldn't figure out how to walk and sit down on the sofa with the carer last night, tried to climb over the sofa arm to sit down. Urine dip still negative so if it continues and there is nothing else going on then his dementia has clearly advanced quite rapidly just from one UTI and the fall with small bleed on his brain (which they weren't worried about).

@Raven08 hope you feel better soon and of course important to stay away until you're fully recovered.

@GnomeDePlume thinking of you this week 💐

@Choconuttolata hope you are able to get to the bottom of things

@ElderlyDilemmas glad to hear DF is seeming better, and hope your mum is able to come to some acceptance of his choices.

Wishing everyone here strength, fortitude and wine/gin/insert drink of choice here this week!

DGM is physically improving a bit, after we thought she might be on the final decline last week. Her mental state is not good though, and neither is DF's. He badly needs a break, but I can't go this week because work is so full on, we are away for MIL's birthday at the weekend and it's half term in some places so we have a lot of people on leave. I feel awfully guilty 😔but can't be in two places at once. I've not had a break from work either because I was hosting a conference half of last week then delivering training at the weekend because the usual trainer went off sick and I was already in London so made sense for me to stay on. But the fact that I've also not had a break, or seen my family for almost a week, doesn't factor in with DF of course.

Hoping for some kahunas of steel to be sent my way this week in the face of very likely being pressured not to go down for MIL's birthday with DH and DC and to relieve DF on hospital watch instead.

@CrazyGoatLady I had to harden my heart to DB's insistence that DM(86) needs to be visited every day. It is his need to visit not hers to be visited.

Feeling worse if that were possible! Bluergh.
We are not visiting every day now...its been quite difficult to do (it takes me almost an hour to get there in the morning)
Mum seems happy with this as she's tired.
She says the pain in much better since they upped the morphine and added the pregablin.
Hoping haematology have some ideas

@CrazyGoatLady I really feel for you.
You have a right to celebrate with your family & MIL.

You also need to look after yourself. Just remember you can’t do it all.

Feeling v frustrated as M is so unstable (balance) at the moment and her legs keep giving out. She's fallen several times recently and she thinks she's fine and this is just a random series of unfortunate events and will magically resolve. I guess there is FA that I can do now other than wait for the bad fall.

@Raven08 sorry to hear you are feeling so rough, but glad to hear your mum is in less pain.

Sending everyone fortitude ...

I never thought I would find myself discussing DM's pants with DB but here we are. She seems to have had a number of pairs go missing so I have had to order a load. DM would have been mortified to have her DS dealing with her pants but that person is gone.

We have a pant related dilemma too @GnomeDePlume. Recently tena pants have been added to the weekly shopping list for DM. However we’re unsure if they are in the category of bulk orders that she adds ( 3 x packets gluten free biscuits, 2 x gluten free loaves when there are already multiples in the freezer and fridge going mouldy because its too much for DF to process) or if they are actually needed. DH says he is going to count the packets by her bedside and adjust the order accordingly.

DM prior to this would have been horrified by her DSIL being acquainted of her need for tena pants, never mind having to do a weekly stock count of them. But there we go.

Tena pants are my current pain too. The nursing and care team feel the pants are a serious fall risk and keep calling me to tell DM not to use them. Non pants styles are what they recommend, but DM refuses them.
Never a discussion I thought I'd be having with my mother, never mind a random group of care professionals.

@turkeyboots is the falls risk because she has to get them off around her ankles when changing them herself? If she has the strength you can tear the sides to take them off usually.

My DF also refuses to use the continence team pads that aren't like proper pants because they slide out sideways out of the pants you have to use to hold them in which is less comfortable. They also look less like pants. He likes the blue ones as they feel more like pants and less like nappies to him.

DM is using pads rather than tena. So these are fabric pants. Any road, according to amazon a new pack of pants is on its way. If the right size then more will be ordered.

Gone for quantity rather than quality. I think DM beyond the point where sturdy sloggis are needed.

All beyond DB - imagine Stephen Fry having to deal with women's underwear.

Back again, in-laws this time. New name, new people and different problems.

We're not even trying to solve yesterday's problems, I'd say most of this stuff was set in stone a decade ago.

No one is to think that two people in their late 80s are old. So no appropriate furniture, mobility stuff or planning ahead.

MIL wants a falls alarm but a smart watch style, for an Olympian, despite her failing eyesight meaning she struggles to read emails on a computer. No one local must know, but all the children are 90 minutes away. She does not want to be put through to foreigners. The result being that tech bro bil is ordering a baffling selection of eBay 'bargain' watches which will no doubt record in huge detail what time people fell in the garden, their heart rate and sleeping pattern till recovery.

There's so much more. We've just spent the weekend with them and DH has taken leave today so it's a bit raw.

Much sympathy @GuiltFreedom . That sounds both ridiculous and frustrating in equal measure.

Did anyone else see the thread where the OP has elderly (late 70s/early 80s) parents who want to move to rural France?

Far too many posters saying 'They're adults, let them get on with it'. It's only when you experience it that you realise the middle of the night panicked phone calls which are waiting round the corner for the OP.

@GuiltFreedom you have my sympathy. What stuck a chord with me was the ‘she doesn’t want to be put through to foreigners’. Not the foreigners bit but the ‘she doesn’t want’. There comes a time where wants have to be trumped by needs.

Totally agree that often all of this was set in stone at least a decade ago. I have stepped back hugely and been reflecting on incidents over decades with my parents. Utter sheer refusal to consider any sensible decisions to ensure they could remain in their own home.

We all age and we all owe it to ourselves to look at each situation and adapt accordingly. However hard we find it.

I have come to the conclusion with my own situation that they just buried their heads in the sand about anything they didn’t like. One thing that has always ‘interested’ me about my mother is she has always had a habit of talking with her eyes closed when it is about things that are challenging. She also has on repeat ‘I don’t want that’s but does not offer up what she does want…..well we know that - she wants us to drop everything for her.

Hope your DH can decompress with a day off. It is as @GnomeDePlume wisely said ridiculous and frustrating. 💐

My cousin has a FIL who has always been an adventurous / somewhat forceful type, about 5 years ago another cousin said to me did you know Pete's FIL is trying to talk Pete and wife into them all selling up in London, buying a derelict farm with him and MIL in West Wales and converting the house for the 4 of them and stables into holiday lets. FIL/MIL were in their mid 80s at this point and healthy and well. I remember saying to DH I REALLY hope they don't go through with this, how are Dcousin and wife going to find work in rural Wales in their 50s as well as manage all this and what if DPILs start needing care in the middle of nowhere not to mention the potential financial mess of paying care fees and/or inheritance with DCousin-wife's siblings. This idea chuntered on for a couple of years and thankfully went away, just as well because the ILs are now practically housebound.

My DF did end up in hospital after all, he deteriorated late Sunday night and paramedics were called, they tried phoning me but my phone was on do not disturb (I have the care home and all family numbers on by-pass but this was the paramedics not the care home, I've taken it off now but muted my mum as she texts me all night) so they overrode his wishes as a best interests decision because UTIs are treatable and usually short term. He's stable now but very weak.

MIL moved the care home for her respite care yesterday and DH is really struggling with it all. He seems to think its his sole responsibility to get her back to "normal" and that the care home wont do enough to facilitate this. I think its the enormity of having two parents with dementia both in a care home thats the issue. MILs needs are pretty high at the best of times and we were completely propping her up when she was in her flat.

Its too early to tell how much she'll recover her mobility and managing her own toileting needs but it just feels completely overwhelming at the moment.

My pils are mid 80s, mil now has parkinsons. No discussion of future needs is allowed and she refuses to use the walking frame in the house - which ie ironic as thats where her first fall occurred 🤷‍♀️
Staying well out of it!
Mum says shes back on the antibiotics (?) and the dr is supposed to be phoning me (?)
I really must try and go in on friday and speak to someone.

DB is back on his 'someone has spoken harshly/been clumsy with DM, this is why she refuses assistance' cobblers again. He still cant seem to accept that DM now has largely regressed to being a toddler.

If DM refuses assistance they cant force her. Also she isnt the only resident. So long as she is basically safe then they have other people to deal with.

DB wants it all to be somebody's fault. It's funny, it's a character trait he shared with DM, every negative thing was always somebody's fault. Colds, bugs etc were always caught from an identified person. Nothing ever just happened, there had to be somebody to blame.