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 think you've hit the nail on the head. My brother definitely still imagines that life looking after DM will be like this. He has convinced himself that the recent series of crises is just and unfortunate blip (and something that I could fix if I would only make enough fuss at the hospital) and with a bit of care and attention she'll be back to helping out with his laundry/childcare etc. He keeps making comments about things DM can do 'when all this is over'. He still doesn't seem to understand that 'all this' will only get worse.

The dumping relatives in a care home narrarive is so unhelpful. When FIL went into a care home he'd tried to strangle MIL in bed in the morning as he was having delusions. Carers coming in would not have fixed that. At that time MIL was also trying to enact some sort of double suicide pact by starving them both to death.

Now 18months later MIL is moving permanently to the same home after her marked decline after a stay in hospital. The difficult decisions have been made based on keeping them safe and well cared for.

I get the opposite, my overseas siblings are screaming for DM to be put in a home. But she has no money, and the Fair Deal scheme which funds care homes here won't take her until she's significantly more disabled. Which will come, but right now shes pottering on OK with care visits and meals on wheels. Of course siblings aren't offering to pay for any care... Just want a care home magiced up for her.
And Im another one who's parents and inlaws never cared for their elderly relatives. There's been such a leap in the age people die over the last few decades. I only had 1 grandparent make it into their 80s, but the generation behind them will probably live to 90.

So true @StillNiceCardigan. I met our knoblord neighbour when we were both walking the dogs yesterday. He’s actually a very nice man and had the decency to look slightly ashamed of himself and apologise when I pointed out what moving in with my DPs would actually mean for me.

DH and I were happy to keep my DPs out of a home when it simply involved a weekend day a fortnight, changing lightbulbs and sorting out the odd tricky bill, even when it became more frequent and onerous we tried to respect their wishes. But when both DPs started exhibiting more severe forms of their dementia and I genuinely did not know what I would find when I got there with multiple incomprehensible calls from DM every day, it’s no longer doable.

@turkeyboots that’s so hard. I am very grateful that my DPs have enough money so we can pick the time for them to go in ( now they have agreed) and make sure that they’re in a decent care home close to us. I am so aware that without that we would have had to lurch on until the next inevitable crisis.

All good wishes today @rookiemere x

Has anyone seen Small Prophets on the BBC.
Part of the story involves Michael Palin's character in a care home. I thought it was honest, lots of afternoon naps for the other residents, but not scary. Really rather warm without going down the fantasy Marigold Hotel portrayal.

Part of the in-laws family lore is that MIL moved and nursed three of the parents into DH 's childhood home.
I was genuinely supporting my Gran in her lovely , brand new, wardened sheltered accommodation, lunchtime visits during my a-levels so could absolutely imagine a close knit family pulling together.
I remember MIL's head tilt sad face that we hadn't gone that extra mile. Gran had moved into a home when I moved off for uni and then being tough lasted another 6 years with terrible dementia.

I'm a bit more cynical these days. And it turns out those epic years of in-law nursing were odd days moving from their house to a care home at the end of the road. And justifying a sum of money to extend for a 'granddad annexe' which took longer to build than he lived in.

All those grandparents died of heart failure and pneumonia really quickly. FIL has just had his second pacemaker fitted, both have their blood pressure heavily controlled. FIL would have barely made it into retirement like his father if it wasn't for intervention. It's a completely different world.

Just back from lunch with an old friend who is in the area on holiday. She was sympathetic but didn’t really get it. Both her parents lived until 88/89 but were quite fit and independent, still driving, able to manage their own affairs etc before both got cancer and died within a few months. Horrible and traumatic for her as she nursed them but it wasn’t the relentless years of decline of Alzheimer’s or other dementias or infirmities etc. She said how lucky I was to still have DM then told me all about her last and next holiday.

My mother's executive functioning is brutal. It's so so so bad. One of the worst things is that I see so many disfunctions every day but anyone and everyone who isn't even at home to see it would like to write me off.

I remember an incident from my mother where she was getting up one morning and coming into the kitchen just as I was going to start the dishwasher. The machine was as full as it was going to get. There was stuff shoved down the sides and it was was as full as anything. My mother asked me to wait and to stop until she has her breakfast done likely hoping to get more into the dishwasher. I explained that it was very full which resulted in anger and rage and spite from her. It was over the top. That was last year at some point. I

So I didn't start the wash nor did she.

I learned not to reason with her and if there's stuff to do around the home, to time it for very early when she's still in bed or very late and she's gone to bed or when she's gone for a walk.

I remember episodes where the dishwasher would be full for days if not up to a week at a time and she would refuse to start it and I wasn't arguing with her. I discovered she was picking out a few of her favourite items every day and handwashing wash them. While there wasn't a clean bowl or mug for anyone else or me. That went on for a week. The dishwasher was so full and in the end I had to start a wash when she was in bed and not say anything and just do it. These episodes are regular.

I noticed over the past few days the dishwasher is very very very full now with hardly any clean mugs in the house any more. I was silently going to start the dishwasher last night after work without telling her. Before she went to bed she said that she will start the dishwasher in the morning - as in this morning. It's now 3pm - still not start. I can guarantee you that dishwasher won't be run for another week. She will pick out her favourite mugs and bowls and that will be it.

I will just do a wash tonight after work when she's gone to bed and not say anything.

Her executive functioning and planning and organising. It's awful. It makes no sense.

@rookiemere best of luck with it today, hope they get settled 🙏

Agree that it's not necessarily the "selfish" option, it's much more complex than how a lot of people see it.

Thanks to everyone wishing me well.

Amazingly DF settled in quite the thing and sat happily munching his Belgian biscuits that had been left for him and watching his tv. DM was more troublesome and was anxiously looking and asking for everything. But the staff seem genuinely lovely and well able to sort her out. I have a horrible feeling she may still keep calling about everything but can always ask the staff to confiscate her phone if that’s the case. So fingers crossed all good. Seeing them in their rooms it’s an overdue move, but at least no one can accuse me of bundling them off with obscene haste.

I hope it’s the end of the worst of it.Certainly less driving anyway. @BestIsWest you’re right unless you have been through it you can’t know what it’s like and whilst we have managed to go on short holidays over the past few months, there’s always that worry at the pit of the stomach that some new disaster will befall.

I just had official confirmation of the "not seeing" the cognitive decline. The Care Home sent me a School Report for DER. (Do other homes do this?) It told me he had his own phone and can use it independently to contact friends and family. He can't actually remember how to answer it or make calls, and when I sit and show him how, he never thinks of putting on his reading glasses so he can see the buttons.
Sometimes he tries to phone people on the TV remote control. If someone who is supposed to be caring for him doesn't notice, there's no hope for friends who only visit occasionally.

I am glad the move went well @rookiemere what a relief. There will be teething problems no doubt, but they will adjust.

@ThunderFog I think people write all sorts of nonsense on reports that are nothing to do with the reality. When DF was in hospital they had him down as self caring despite us having found him with faeces everywhere, chair, clothes, hands, hair because he couldn't manage to clean himself up. When DC3 who is autistic was very little the Educational Psychologist who saw him in nursery put down that he was toilet trained, he was in pull ups and the nursery staff were changing him which was documented by them. He didn't fully toilet train until age 7, so clearly wasn't at age 3.

My Mil has been deemed to have cognitive function and therefore is not in a care home because she refuses . She just can't see that everyone is running around her basically doing everything from shopping , admin , cleaning , medical ordering & placing in daily pill boxes etc but she will tell everyone she is self sufficient .
All the help is about it stop however as we have all decided to stop and allow it to fail

This is where I am @MayBeee
It'll be interesting to see what happens

Yes let's " watch this space ! "

@MayBeee @Raven08 I'm joining you.

The last few days have been ugly. We have a discharge plan, but none of them are happy with it. DF not happy because it's a day I can't take off work. DGM not happy because she thinks 3 carer visits a day will be "too disruptive". DF agrees with the 3 visits but is saying I've rushed things and that's why she's upset. DGM has been rather nasty about me to DF and of course he prefers to be good cop.

DF is totally deluded if he thinks the CH will wait around for the softly softly approach and his idea of putting it off and pretending the agency haven't got back to us yet - they've assessed her as fit for discharge and they want the bed back!

DF is so afraid of upsetting DGM that he just gets paralysed, leaving me to sort things out and then get the blame when DGM decides it's not to her liking. I can get her to make decisions, by giving her a limited range of choices. "OK DGM, you can only stay here 2 weeks. After that, your choice is to pay for some residential respite care if you don't think you can go home, or you can go home and have the care agency come 3 times a day, which do you think is best?" But DF will spend hours deliberating, thinking up different solutions, overwhelming her with options and asking "what do you want?" And of course, what she says she wants is to be as independent as she was 5 years ago and none of us can give her that. Or she'll say she wants to die, which we can't help with either. Then he gets upset and no decision is made. Leaving me to solve the problem, and then I'm bad cop when I do.

After the commitments I've made this week, that's me out of this circus for a while. If I'm always so unhelpful and uncaring they can do without my input can't they.

Just catching up. Glad it went OK today @rookiemere. We were dismayed at how many care homes had Radio 2 type music blaring out everywhere when we looked round for one for Dad, he would have hated that and so would Mum as a visitor (and me for that matter). His is very quiet, you just hear TVs blaring from other resident’s rooms sometimes and the TV is usually on in the lounge, but it has quiet areas you can go and sit with your resident too.

My parents are also ones that got away with next to no elderly care. They moved several hundred miles from their families after getting married, leaving siblings in their home town who ended up doing the bulk of it (on one side there was an early retired sibling who did it all, on the other there was a well off SAHM sibling). There was no internet back then so you couldn’t even do admin remotely with any ease so they basically got away with it. DMum retired age 60 on full state and fairly decent occupational pensions, DF at 65 with better ones, and they went off travelling all over the world. We are close to those ages now but nowhere near retiring let alone travelling. Mum and Dad do at least acknowledge this and show gratitude for all the support I am giving (and they know it’s me doing the vast majority, not DB). We have had a bit of respite the last couple of weeks because the GP persuaded DMum to start a low dose of anti-depressant and it does seem to be having a positive effect (on anxiety as well as low mood). I have been having something like a normal mother-daughter relationship with her which is not something I have ever really experienced much (the anxiety is lifelong). It might not last, but it has come as a welcome break.

@CrazyGoatLady
I really feel for you and that's exactly where I was last week.
Mum can make all the ridiculous choices she wants and can absolutely choose not to have carers/tests -
But me turning myself inside out to fix the mess made is over.
In your shoes I'd be very angry at your dfs good cop/bad cop routine.
A friend of mine has never seen her dh in the same way after similar behaviour with his elderly df.

@CrazyGoatLady your DF sounds like he is cut from the same cloth as my DB.

Terrified of upsetting their DM. Not wanting to make the difficult choices. Wanting it all to be someone else's fault.

I swear that my DB is still waiting/hoping DM will tell him he has been a good boy.

@TrayofRoses unfortunately you may find that any sort of diagnosis for your DM wont come until it suits someone, probably in authority.

While you are propping your DM up everyone else will take a step back and leave you to cope alone.

For your own sanity can you start to make plans to leave home?

@GnomeDePlume yes indeed, they do sound very similar. For every bad thing there must be someone to blame.

@Raven08 yes, I am furious, and so is DH. We are both agreed on limiting our input now. He doesn't like seeing them take the proverbial.

@ElderlyDilemmas long may the improvement last!

My sister seems to not understand the opg forms 🙄
They are very simple. H for health. F for finance. Just follow the instructions.
It's really interesting to me hiw utterly clueless my siblings are. But then I remember I've always done everything 🤷‍♀️
My brother is useless, but my sister works in finance! I find it hard to believe she can't fill in a simple form (I imagine I was expected to step in and fill them out!..) 😬

I'm busy working on DIY projects atm.
We have big plans for the garden this year.
I'll go and see mum on monday at some point (I have an appointment) and get whatever she needs.
I'll text her before then or have a chat.