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.

I hadn't thought of it before but I can see that DM continuing to echo B's words/views is probably part of the reason that he is convinced she's fine. She's always been wary of disagreeing with him but now increasingly looks to him for approval if there's any decision (even minor ones) to be made. So when she's with B she tends to nod and agree, echo back his words, seek his views and go along with whatever he says. His interpretation is 'We have conversations and she is making sensible, rational choices'.

Yes denial and lack of acceptance of reality seem to be a theme with brothers.

Mine declared that DF seemed fine before he left again after he came out of hospital last time. At the time DF kept pointing at himself and saying "What goes here? Was it an F?". He also stated on the previous visit that he didn't think he had dementia 🤔🙄

Yes, as a speech therapist I do look for these patterns in conversation as to whether someone is actually understanding and contributing or just being in the conversation without understanding. I would say though that an awful lot of day to day conversations don’t require much apart from set phrases! So I’m not knocking that - interaction matters. As long as you can see what it is really involving.

I think I have to shoulder some of the blame. My siblings were quite happy to let me do everything and visit once a week for 20 mins and I allowed that to happen.
It'll be interesting to see how this plays out.
I'm applying for pt jobs - I don't have the attention span for studying anymore 😕)
It's tricky.
Dh works away a lot, I need to facilitate dd2 getting to college 3 x per week (she gets the tram, but I have to get her to the tram stop, no buses unfortunately)
Then dealing with mum on top of my own health issues I'm just always busy/knackered!
It's odd. I've spent so much time facilitating the lives of others that I'm sort of wondering what to do now 🤷‍♀️
I don't feel positive about her coming home. I think this is the start of the end iykwim?
I'm going to start asking my sister to arrange stuff too, now.
Like physios etc
I'm not going back to being the default person.
As I say, it's going to be interesting 😬

Oh!
And bloody mediquip are giving me a 4 hour time slot!
I might ask my sister to do the latter bit...😬☺️

I care for elderly parents, one with dementia and one with physical disabilities. Me and my sister ( and my DH to be fair) visit daily and help with household chores, gardening, medication and support. My parents are wonderful but one thing pisses me off - my brother, the Golden Child.
he lives around 180 miles away to be fair but very rarely visits unless he comes for football then deigns to drop in. What upsets me is how sad Mum is as he was always her favourite. Tried ringing him, emailing him etc but I honestly don’t think he cares.
Honestly and can’t speak to him he is so selfish.
I had counselling couple years back and the counsellor told me ‘well he is male, men don’t bother as much’ as if that made it ok !

As a sister, wife and mother I think sometimes men are scared to feel all the feelings so denial is a more comfortable place.

Heard a heart-breaking story this week about someone with quite advanced dementia who has also been diagnosed with terminal cancer so the medical advice is palliative care only - the male relative is struggling to accept them ‘giving up’ medically on the patient - and it was all I could do not to say if they can be kept comfortable then speeding things up might be a mercy.

Well.
Got a phone call from mum at 4pm, very upset.
They were discharging her but sending her to a discharge lounge in a chair for hours on end whilst they sort her meds out - that they've known about for 3 weeks.
I said no.
Ward sister said "what"?
I said "No. You aren't sending my frail, medically complex mother to sit on a chair for hours on end".
So I picked her up and took her home.
My sister will have to pick the meds up another time.
I'm aghast at the nhs tbh.
She shouldn't be home, there is no support been put in place, nothing. No onward referrals or outpatient appointments.
My sister and I very much feel whe will end up admitted again soon 🤷‍♀️
Ffs

@Raven08 we are all outraged, probably none of us surprised though.
Lost another elderly relative recently and during his last stay in hospital his late-80s wife had to drive in from the next town every day to feed him and help mobilize him, because he had dementia and just couldn't look after himself at all any more. And I assume that the hospital just didn't have the staff to do this. At any rate, it certainly wasn't being done.

On another topic - anyone got any insights about helping leg ulcers heal?

@Raven08 that's awful. I wish I could say I was shocked, but the NHS in 2026 seems to have no limit to the lows it will stoop to.

My DF is definitely another man who can't deal with the thought of his DM dying and thinks hospitals and medics exist to cheat death. Although I work in healthcare, he's always insisting he knows better, as he's spent more time in hospital as a patient! And he says I'm not a real healthcare professional anyway (psychologist by trade, though head of a clinical education department now and work closely with a number of NHS trusts). But when it comes to it and he can't get results by making demands and stomping about, I'm the one who suddenly knows how to navigate the system and I MUST step in. There have been times when care has been poor, the nurses weren't following the consultant's instructions re meds (probably just not checking the file for changes) and they have needed a boot. But other times, there's been no more they could have been doing and we just needed to wait and see if it worked.

@MysterOfwomanY your poor relative. There is definitely no care beyond the basics in hospital these days. Even when DGM was admitted a year ago there were HCAs and student nurses who would help mobilise her, help her get a wash, etc. This time, there's barely been any care to help maintain her dignity and she doesn't want DF helping her in the bathroom. When I've gone, I've done things like brush her hair, cut her nails, clean her hearing aids, but she couldn't go for a shower/bath in the wet room because she was on oxygen and the staff wouldn't allow it unless it was one of them, but they hadn't the capacity. She's got a bad infected ingrowing toenail and her hearing aids need resetting, but for some unknown reason nobody from podiatry or audiology can come to the ward to do these things, it all has to wait for an outpatient appointment? Crackers.

I found ward care very hit and miss. Some good and some pretty bad. I think it is down to different teams, how well they do and dont work together. You will get clustering, the old 'birds of a feather' thing. Good people want to work with good people. Lazy people will attract other lazy people.

@MysterOfwomanY is the leg ulcer being treated? Is someone dressing it? I have had a few small ones. Getting my blood sugar under control (diabetic) has helped both with healing and incidence.

My DM (also diabetic) had a fairly large one which took months to heal. The district nurse was doing regular dressing changes.

@MysterOfwomanY
Ouch. I only know ulcers are a night mare to deal with and take an age to heal 😕
I didn't sleep much. I'm going to phone mum shortly to see how she is.
My sister can fetch the meds...I feel utterly wrung out.
A lot of the hospital staff were lovely - just not enough of them.
The physios and OT were all p/t so very patchy.
It's not like me, but I feel very negative about it all.

I'm going to have to try to behave as my siblings have for the past few years...
Out of sight, out of mind 😕
Lots to sort out re: meds etc but it can wait until next week, I just don't have the bandwidth atm.
I'd honestly be surprised if she isn't back in hospital at the weekend 😕

But!
Today I am going to eat chocolate and go for a walk as - amazingly - it's not actually raining! 😲

@Raven08 they rush out the discharges so quickly. DF last year was sent to the discharge lounge, ended up staying overnight (bed in side room) whilst they got the home care team in place and became unwell again overnight so ended up back on a ward being treated for possible sepsis. Waiting on a chair all day just for medication makes no sense and yes get your sister to get the meds.

I hope you can get some time for yourself today to eat chocolate and walk in the sunshine. I might take a leaf out of your book and do the same!

DH struggles with his parents aging but has also become hypersensitive to me making any comments at all.
I guess it could be misplaced nerves but a perfectly casual, fill a conversation vacuum comment got blown up last night. I've been there already with my parents and anticipate more in the future but it's first time round for him.

Last week, he was trapped in a car, alone with them for five hours and did not cope well. Years of solo parenting has given me direct transferable skills to anticipate hunger, boredom and needing a poo whilst back in the day he skipped most of that.
The repetition accompanied by the waft of urine in a heated seat situation will sadly become a core memory.

But the in-laws family are determined to remain immortal, never show weakness or change a routine. I guess the writing was on the wall years ago with the annual trip to Blackpool then Cornwall then Dubai. Find accomodation then endlessly revisit. The kitchen refit repeated the same uncomfortable layout. Food on a loop. It's going to be change by crisis rather anticipation.

I need to age in a more random way and accept change with grace and excitement.

@GuiltFreedom totally agree about transferable skills.

DB, having never had DCs, has no idea about toddler wrangling. Dealing with interchangeable 'wants' and 'needs'. Each crisis emanating from DM left DB emotionally wrung out. Everything was an issue which needed to be resolved immediately, mainly by getting people to run around.

Definitely agree re transferrable skills! I find the toddler distraction methods I honed with mine work well with DM.

B has a child but unfortunately his go-to way of managing when things got tricky was, until far too recently, to go to mum and dad for them to help. I think it was obvious for a couple of years at least that they weren't really fit enough but they would never say so. I think he overlooked the fact that since he had his child later in life it meant our parents were much older than most grandparents of toddlers. So for him it seems that within 12 months he has gone from having 2 parents who were the 'adults' for him, to one parent who is acting like a toddler. I suspect at some level his refusal to accept DM's decline/mortality is a hope that somehow she will be OK and can be his safety net again. I know he'd really like me to take on that role too, but for many, many reasons I will absolutely not be stepping in to her shoes.

Until today my Dad hasn't given us any reason to worry. He used to be housebound but apparently his house is now a mess. I live away from home and my sister is local but has said if she wants to visit hell suggested going out for coffee.

I had a call just know that Dad had a fall and hit his head, apparently he tripped. He had a fall about 6 weeks ago when he tripped (see the pattern)

He's currently at home waiting for an ambulance that the doctor called. His mother had vascular dementia and this is how it started. I cared for my MiL ( with professional help) when she had dementia and I dont know if I can go through that again.

@CharlotteCChapel I'm sorry to hear about your dad.
If you feel it'll be too much for you to embark on another few years' caring, do make that clear from the start, and don't feel guilty about it.
You must prioritise your own health first.

We women in our 50s and 60s need to look after ourselves. Caring causes a significant diminution in our health and shortens our lives. And for what?

I'll second @TheBroonOneAndTheWhiteOne . You dont have to become your DF's carer.

As is said many times on this thread, you have to choose between resentment or guilt. Choose guilt.

I haven't seen mum today, have phoned and text <guilt>
Sister is going tomorrow unless she "suddenly" feels ill 🙄
I'll pop in on friday as I've got to sort out a parcel issue
It all rather feels like the calm before the storm

@CharlotteCChapel I'll third what @GnomeDePlume and @TheBroonOneAndTheWhiteOne have said. You are not obliged to become his carer. Even with professional help, it is exhausting. My FIL is currently doing it for his DM with VD, even with 3 carer visits a day it's barely manageable, and the carers are phoning him almost every visit about something or other. She really needs to be in residential care, but he won't hear of it. He promised he'd make sure she stayed in her own home, even though that wasn't something he could guarantee, and we all said it, don't make promises you can't keep. Start as you mean to go on, because if you start down the "I'll do everything to make sure you can stay at home" road, it's very hard to turn back.

And re the staying in own home, there comes a point where a care home is the best option.

My DM, with vascular dementia, is now on end of life care. As her needs have changed over the last months the new equipment she needs has been available almost instantly: different stand aids, bed pans, different mattresses. Her CH has a stock of these things. X no longer works, get Y out of the store cupboard.

As her dementia has advanced DM has had less and less of an idea where she is. It would make no difference to her to be in her own home.

I should add the leg ulcers is being dressed by the DN and the GP has prescribed drugs to help her sleep easier. So the local GP surgery are doing their bit in this regard.
I was thinking more diet, supplements, exercise... Stuff GPs may not bother to mention because the advice gets ignored rather than it wouldn't help if you did it. IYSWIM.

I wrote a whole thing about resentment, guilt, disgruntlement and exasperation but it's too late for that !