Cockroach cafe - Spring to Summer 2026

[FiniteSagacity]

New thread for us all to gather and have tea, cake and something from the stronger shelf as needed.

Keeping the cockroach name in honour of those who have graduated the thread in spite of the suggested thread names!

OMG your brother is such a liability @bigdogpaws

He really is. It's awkward though because all anyone else sees is him doing his best to look after mum. I'm sure I really do look like the uncaring, selfish one to most people. Mum has covered up for him all his life so no-one else would guess that behind the facade of 'I'll do whatever I need to for my mum' he has been fighting against getting assessments and proper help, or that he regularly complains to her that she didn't help him enough when she could and will be responsible if he can't work and his child has no home.

I had / have LPA for both my parents. After several years of using my dad’s bank card when I was running errands for them from 2019 to 2022 (this is Fraud even if the account holder gives you permission) I went to the bank with the POA. The manager told me to go off and do my Xmas shopping for an hour. When I went back he had done all the paperwork for me to have access to their joint current account and get a bank card in my own name for the account. My dad still had his bank card (my mum’s dementia was too bad for her to have access to money at that point) and didn’t have to give any permission to use it. It was really easy to start using the POA.

@MysterOfwomanY It’s not me with the LPA, we got that sorted a few years back, I’m just the one with an AWOL brother. In which I’m not alone!

Hi can I join please. My dad is 89 with Parkinson’s, dementia and many other ailments. Catheter, dysphagia (puréed food only), severe falls risk, etc. DM is a bit younger and generally well at 83 and his full time carer, plus 4x daily care visits. I have a DB and a DSis and we all do our bit (DBs bit is a little more restricted, but hey). We all work full time and live in London, mum and dad are 300 miles away.

Tonight, DMs had a medical emergency so we’ve been trying to sort out an ambulance for someone who is more worried about her sleeping DH than her own clear need. Lovely DSis is on route and I’ve been chasing nhs for both of them.

dad has CHC funding which is great, and mum gets a bit of respite through that too but it is such a roller coaster. This is the third a&e in three weeks between them.

just feeling a bit drained tonight so good to have somewhere to post.

@Houseplantqueen that sounds horribly stressful. And after the immediate crisis there is the worry of how to deal with next stages.

Re LPAs. DM set up her financial one as joint between DB and me. TBH, DB has been managing DM's finances for some years. LPA never registered so I am looking the other way.

Health is joint and severally. HCPs a bit variable on it. When it was suggested that DM could have a pacemaker the consultant was more than happy for me to decline on DM's behalf.

Now DM is formally declared as not having capacity either DB or I can act/decide on her behalf. We arent entirely in agreement as I dont want DM to receive any further treatment but DB doesnt want to be seen to be responsible for a decision which might hasten DM's death albeit in greater comfort.

I find the capacity question a bit bewildering. I’ve been asked by several HCPs/ social services if DM has capacity and I never know what the answer is. How would I know?

is possible that they are asking if she’s been assessed as not having capacity by someone qualified to do so?

Is anyone here looking after or checking on elderly aunts or uncles? I have a couple who married but don't have any children of their own. However, now it's reached a point where I would like to take a step back but nobody else is supporting them so feeling guilty of doing this. Any thoughts on this? I am starting to feel overwhelmed with the first signs of dementia and the nastiness that can come with it. My own quality of life improved if I did less. Any thoughts appreciated.

@timoteigirl you will see on this thread that a lot of people are caught between resentment and guilt.

Once dementia gets its claws in you will never be able to do enough. You will constantly find you have solved yesterday's problem. Even if you could give your relatives every waking hour it wont be enough or it will be wrong in some way.

Is it 'just' personality changes at the moment or do your relatives need practical support?

Do they have funds to pay for practical support? Cleaners, gardeners, laundry services etc.

Thanks @GnomeDePlume yes they have funds for support such as having a cleaner but are resisting. If I bring the topic up, I get the negative comments and talk. They also repeatedly talk about how old they are and how young I am so possibly cannot understand. How to take a step back?

Just saying hi (different user name; have commented before on old threads with a different username) and to have a whinge.

Most 'special' occasions, I've made a thing of getting MIL and my DM/DF over for a meal. It's usually something like 11am till 4.30pm...try and get DC to stay too. The last times we did this was Xmas and Mothers Day.

Unlike previous years, DH and I, for Easter this year kind of decided we weren't going to do anything. The DC were off doing their own thing so we didn't plan a big lunch or anything...we did pop in and see my parents and helped DF with stuff he wanted doing in the garden so spent around 3 hours with them.

I popped in yesterday after work for a bit and the first thing DM said to me was 'I was disappointed not to have seen you over the bank holiday'...said with a sad smile and puppy dog eyes. She has a shocking memory (think dementia but she won't have tests) so it's likely she forgot she saw me but when I said 'but mum, we came on saturday and stayed for a while' she just scrunched her nose up at me and turned away briefly before pretending that she hadn't said anything. Now I know my DM, that nose scrunch and head turn was done because she was put out that she hadn't had an invite over the Easter period.

DF shook his head and rolled his eyes at me whilst I just said 'it's just never enough for you mum is it. Whatever I do is never enough'.

When I left she said 'it would be nice to see the kids...we don't see them much now...they can't be bothered with their boring grandparents anymore...' said with a tinkly laugh. I don't know how I stayed civil. Why would you make a comment like that?!! She's so used to reverting to emotional blackmail to get her own way and it's infuriating but because she has dementia, I have to just forget about it. (I did say to her though that 'you saw DS on saturday. and my kids have a life of their own mum. they'll come and see you when they want to; I'm not forcing them to'. I cried all the way home.

for the last 4.5 years, because of her medical incident (now bed/wheelchair/sofa bound and doubly incontinent) I have done ALL their life admin...sorted her coming out of hospital/care home...dealt with social services over the years, sorted her benefits, sorted her prescriptions, medical appointments, nappies, hoists, wheelchair, hearing aids, blue badge...you think of it, I've done/organised it. At the beginning I saw them 3 or 4 x week and now I've reduced to 2 x week and I'm fucking tired of it. Tired of trying to hold it together with work, my own health issues, menopause, kids with their mental health issues and Uni/work issue and whatever I do for her is never enough. It never has been.

The guilt I had in not arranging anything over easter high but I just ignored it and got on with what DH and I wanted to do and after her comment yesterday the guilt just vanished entirely. That realisation that no matter what I do will always be lacking because all she wants is for me to be glued to her so I can entertain all her waking moments because she's so fucking selfish and it's all about her.

There's no point saying anything to her because she won't remember she said anything (although I do have suspicions that she might remember certain stuff...) so I'm screaming into an abyss...Sorry that was so long but it's just scratching the surface. Similar to a lot of you so I don't feel so alone...

I would suggest that you are 'ill' for a while or have a bad ankle or something that gets you out of visiting for a good while. And perhaps then they'll begin to see that they're not coping so well without you.

My aunt is in a nursing home. We moved her there straight from hospital, who had said she was 'end-of-life' and she was delirious from morphine - we thought she had sudden onset dementia and weeks to live.

She has completely recovered from what we now think was morphine induced delirium and is of sound mind but is miserable and resentful in the nursing home.

She is bedbound and has a catheter but says she wants to go home. I have PoA for health and financial. I just don't know what to do. Any advice?

@SweetChilliGirl she is safe and cared for 24/7. How would coming home look? I bet it would involve a lot of your time and effort and she'd still be unhappy because she is bed bound with catheter.

The cruelty of dementia is the regression into childish behaviour: selfishness, temper etc without the promise that they will grow out if it.

It wouldn't involve much of my time on a day to day basis as I live 150 miles away 😬
She would have to buy in some care visits I suppose, to deal with the catheter etc .

Beware the phone calls and admin. Carers need paying, instructing, they phone up about things like there's a light bulb needs changing. What about cleaning, house maintenance, gardening, food shopping? Before you know it you could be managing a team of people who call you about every little decision.

I think support to some extent would be manageable if it showed to make the difference but cannot see it. It almost feels like they are bitter of bring old and less able to do things and despise me for being younger.

@Sortingmyself look how a stranger reads your email. You feel guilty even if you have done so much and you say you know nothing is enough. Need to look after yourself.

Are you kidding?

Your time would no longer be yours if she came home.

You'd get phone calls all day, every day, all night sometimes.

You'd have to deal with all the queries generated by these calls.

I recommend that you do not get sucked into the shitshow which would inevitably result if your aunt came home.

@SweetChilliGirl Unless you have other friends/family living closer to your aunt who have agreed to give you a lot of help I think your aunt being home will involve far more for you that you would expect. That's not intended to be any way unpleasant to you, just from experience of underestimating the needs of an elderly relative. As the BroonOneAndTheWhiteOne says, if she's bed-bound and unhappy in the care home I suspect she would not be happy in her own home with just visiting carers and would call on you a lot. Even 'just' organising carers etc is a very time consuming job and (assuming she can't pay for live-in carers) they will only call at set times so she will call you when she wants anything outside those times and it's very difficult not to feel compelled to go and deal with it (or at least drop everything to find someone who can).

@SweetChilliGirl to add another voice of bitter experience.

My DM 'wanted to go home' earlier in her care home career. What I gradually came to realise was that the home she wanted was an idealised version of her childhood home. If she had somehow been taken back to her bungalow she would have been horrified.

She is bedbound and has a catheter but says she wants to go home.

@SweetChilliGirl this came up in my very first chat with a social worker who came to assess mum. She said that vulnerable elderly people who say they want to go home really mean they want their life to go back to how it was before they became infirm. They are often not capable of seeing that if they returned to their house they wouldn’t suddenly be sprightly and active again. They would be on their own with 4x daily care visits and have all the usual stresses about house cleaning and maintenance, shopping, gardening, bills etc. Which would then become your stresses instead to manage from a distance of 150 miles.

She is currently safe and has access to 24hour care. It’s a much less bad option than being at home, where she’d still be miserable and resentful that she’s old and ill and in pain. If she’s no longer in need of nursing care then maybe a different care home would suit her better? Maybe if she felt she had a choice in which one she’d be less resentful?