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!

She's not actually being given it. This is all part of the 'not yet, not yet' issue which DB and CH are stuck in.

DB because he isnt ready and CH because DM's distress isnt disturbing anyone but her.

@GnomeDePlume how would your brother respond to a suggestion to try the lorazepam once just to see if it helps calm her? Perhaps at a time you are both there so can see the effect it has on her?

Is she actually conversing with anyone at any point during the day or is she either asleep or gently whimpering? If there is no engagement with visitors then ensuring she has no distress by giving her the lorazepam isn’t reducing her engagement with people but IS maximising her comfort.

Do you think the care home nursing team would have stern words with your brother that ‘she needs it’ at some point or are they going to let him decide everything up to the end?

@Scrabsqueak Just on a practical note, if you want to get some air in to the house when you next visit it's relatively simple to open locked windows from the inside (if they are the standard UPVC type). There are videos online- I had to do it when we moved in to a house and the previous owner had forgotten to leave us the keys. Not a long term solution but could give you some relief if the place is too hot when you are there.
Have you spoken to anyone about her cognitive abilities? Is it normal for her to not tell you about medical discussions (or be unclear about what they were) and get overly worried about small issues (eg. worrying that the key box will rust immediately)? Looking back, one of the first signs that there was something more than just age related slowing down with mum was when she started giving us confusing/conflicting accounts of what she'd been told in medical appointments, and when she started to get very worried about things that were very unlikely to happen. I've realised now that some of the seemingly very complicated 'rules' about her medication other things she's been asked to do to help manage medical conditions were actually her misunderstanding what she was told.

Back from my family weekend in Berlin.

no one died e.g., I didn’t kill Germany-based Corporate Golden Boy brother. It was all terribly civilised and middle class polite.

Now back to it. Social worker called this AM. Obviously, she called me. Not the Flake in Nottingham, not the Corporate Golden Boy. Me. Because I’ve been sorting every fucking thing out.

Yes, we want the care package to continue. Social worker was super helpful. Mum’s income is so low that it will probably be free. Mum needs to apply for attendance allowance.

i think there’s a Sibling Expectation that I go through the attendance allowance form with mum, which I will do to ensure it’s actually done.

Does anyone have any tips on making a strong application? If it gets rejected can we immediately apply again? Or do we have to wait?

Flake is at Mum’s doing three days of medical appointments this week as I put my foot down and said NO. I’ve messaged Flake to say get hydration tablets and rearrange the carer. No response. I’m not doing either of these tasks.

i got a really high handed response from Corporate Golden Boy in reply to my update. Not even ‘thanks for the update’ ‘that’s good news’ or ‘let me know if you need any help with the form’.

FUCKING RUDE.

It’s such a weird dynamic, he’s so used to being in control over the corporate world that he seems to resent my messages and me being project manager - because that’s ostensibly what I am - but won’t actually do the project management or be gracious enough to ackonowkdge it.

It’s not like we’re competing for the bonus round at the end of the year! But in his highly competitive brain I’m competing for his Golden Child status.

Over the years it would have been nice to be the Golden Child at certain points in my life, but fuck me, if it turned me into an entitled dickhead who is unable to work out the family dynamics and PROCESS them to make for ordered, helpful, sensible and strategic decision making over what’s best for our mother thsn I’ll stick with being a rebel .

Attendance allowance: not sure if it’s still the case but a few years ago it was best to call up to get a form sent as then when you got attendance allowance awarded they backdated it to when you asked for the form as long as you sent it back within 6 weeks.

Help filling it in - for my first parent’s application I had an appointment at Age UK to help me put the right things in the application. Citizen’s Advice seem to do similar.

https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/benefits/sick-or-disabled-people-and-carers/attendance-allowance/claiming-attendance-allowance/help-with-attendance-allowance-form/

hi all, sending positive thoughts to everyone in this grim situation…

I’m struggling today. MiL has been sent home from hospital as “medically optimised” and because she wants to be home despite severe heart failure, various other medical issues meaning she has a very high risk of falls and limited life expectancy. She’s still refusing to sleep in her bed (now downstairs) which means her legs, which are pretty much ulcerated from the knees down, are just… grim. I won’t go into details but it is utterly, utterly grim. It’s sent me spiralling back to when I was a kid and my mum was dying of cancer from a tumour that had breached the surface of her face and the sheer enormous guilt of finding it awful and just wanting to run, run away and keep running.

I have come home from her place having sorted some things out for her and was immediately met with demands for help / attention from my teenagers & husband, and I just wanted to throw up and then hide. And I have to function at work the rest of the week while waking up at all hours because I’m on high alert for the next call/text/email from her to say she’s fallen and could we go around and pick her up. It’s all a bit nightmarish.

@NoMoreFluffsToGive , that sounds so hard and triggering for you.
Ulcerated legs can take so long to heal if the person isn’t v mobile.
It’s amazing the state some hospitals appear willing to send people home in. I hope you can get some proper rest at night.

@bigdogpaws , thanks for that. Universal ‘jiggler’ on way from Amazon now!😂 MIL has been assessed twice by social services in the last year, last time being about 3 months ago. She is deemed to have full capacity. She has always been a worrier, and now she is on her own all the time she spends far too much time in her own head making up scenarios. It’s very hit and miss if she listens to me or not, and often forgets what we’ve discussed. I don’t think it’s dementia as she is 88 and it seems a bit late to come on ( although I could well be wrong about that). I think her life is just overwhelming her, this is the first time she has ever been alone and had to make decisions. Plus, she is getting old and doesn’t have the concentration or memory capacity she once had.

@NoMoreFluffsToGive I am so sorry 💐that does sound utterly grim. Is anyone coming out to dress/treat the ulcers on DMIL's legs? Is there any sort of treatment plan in place?

@ManchesterMonkey re attendance allowance, the advice we were given was to think about DM's needs on her worst days rather than on her best or average days.

@Choux DM is no longer capable of any sort of conversation with anyone or even saying a complete sentence. What little she says is sometimes a couple of words but even then they can be difficult to understand. Mostly they are just random words.

DB has got CH staff frightened to do anything in case he complains to someone. I know him, he will just waffle on in a passive aggressive way but wont actually do anything.

He thinks being 'challenging' makes him look intelligent. He wants the CH nurse to argue back, show evidence or something. They wont because DM is quiet, not bothering anyone.

So DM is left to continue in misery.

@ManchesterMonkey I used this https://www.ageuk.org.uk/siteassets/documents/information-guides/attendance-allowance/id205824-attendance-allowance-guidance_web.pdf to fill in with DM and she got enhanced rate including the overnight part. Sorry your siblings still being troublesome.

Thanks @GnomeDePlume… they were dressed today & are being dressed 2-3 times a week, think they were last dressed maybe Friday? It’s so grim though, I hadn’t realised they were weeping so much her special grippy socks were soaked (do we have a gagging emoji?!)

It just feels like elder / end of life ‘care’ is appalling in this country, and the knock on effect is on everything - ambulances tied up with falling patients who should be in a home but whose wants seem to override everything else including their and those around them’s needs… bed blocking for weeks on end because there’s no suitable step down / rehab care beds available, families wrung out trying to manage both ends of the generation spectrum and struggling to cope themselves. It’s so bleak.

Then mix in the muppet siblings some of you have to deal with and…

To everyone. And probably gin too.

@GnomeDePlume the brother who feels he has to challenge everything is horribly familiar to me. I think mine feels that he has to be seen to advocate for our parents but all to often there's really nothing that can be sensibly challenged- the situation is unpleasant but the hcp are doing as much as they can. I am slightly surprised that mine has not tried to challenge mum's diagnosis, but I think it helps that he was at most of the assessment meetings and decided that the person leading those was 'very knowledgeable and clearly very intelligent' (= appeared to agree with him).
@ManchesterMonkey Good on you for pushing back with your brothers. We have 'schrodinger's admin tasks'. These are simultaneously incredibly difficult/time consuming/can't possibly be done by someone who has to work etc, and also just a couple of phone calls/a bit of paperwork/5 minute job- depending on which of us is being asked/expected to do them. I also need to urgently complete attendance allowance paperwork after Brother insisted (in front of the social worker) that he must do it because we MUST phone for a paper form, it MUST go to his house and only he can fill it in properly. Months later no phone call has been made and no form completed because apparently he can't possibly do that when he works. So now he has very graciously agreed that I can do it since it is after all just a form and a few bits of paperwork. The form looks simple but I understand that the wording used in answers can make a big difference to the outcome so the links upthread will be very useful.

@ManchesterMonkey I also have a brother who's a master of the high handed response. After he went way too far at Christmas I've gone no contact. Typically his attitude would be I know you've had to drop everything 3 times this month and do a 2 hour round trip to sort an urgent major issue but that's just what a daughter should do, I had to go online and make a payment while sitting on my sofa which is far more onerous.

I think nobody sees the reality until they are up to their necks in it.

Nobody realises that their sweet, slightly dotty parent can turn into a pinching, scratching, biting fiend. That forgetting names can turn into forgetting people. My DM stopped knowing who I was some months ago. That your doubly incontinent parent will sometimes cry because they have used the pad and think they have been naughty. That indignity will be piled on indignity and family is made to witness it.

Instead we see cheerful segments on breakfast television where a jolly sing song makes it all better.

@Scrabsqueak she sounds VERY like my DM. Always been anxious, now having to cope alone (DF is in a home) and getting forgetful (very) but getting a clean bill of health in memory screenings. The anxiety is a massive problem because it stops her getting things done and she dumps her worries on me for hours on end which uses up my capacity to actually help with the things that need sorting.

Scrabsqueak my parents both started with dementia in their early 80s.

My parents also both started showing dementia symptoms at about 80. It’s caused by a build up of protein in the brain so I imagine the protein could build up quickly and symptoms are evident in your 70s or build up slowly so symptoms don’t occur until almost 90. The NHS says the risk of developing Alzheimer’s increases with age.

Is there any family history of dementia or have previous generations died before your MIL’s current age?
https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/alzheimers-disease/

@bigdogpaws WRT the Attendance Allowance form putting it at a very base level helping with toileting & incontinence is a key factor along with personal hygiene. Record any assistance no matter how small.

@Choux , I’m not really sure about family history. She says they all lived to a grand old age and were absolutely fine till the day they died, but I have my doubts. There is no one else to ask, but she also has the story BIL was well until the day he went into hospital, but I was around at the time, and he definitely was not, he was obviously very ill, as was my DH who she also says was fine. Whether she really believes that, I don’t know, given how she is downplaying her apparent incontinence which she has not told me about except by mistake this week. It was obvious to me my FIL had Parkinson’s before he died, well before, but no one in the family mentioned it. It sometimes makes me wonder what I married into, and has perhaps made me overshare with my DCs, but I really resented all the denying and ‘don’t say anything’ when someone got seriously ill, and refused to go along with it when my DH was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.
Even when my BIL was in hospital, and named me as next of kin so Drs told me he had liver cancer he asked me not to tell MIL, even though he had only been given about 3 months to live.
I think this is part of my trouble dealing with MIL, she is not my own family and I just don’t understand how that type of secretive family dynamic works so I keep getting it wrong. And there is no one else to explain it to me, cos she is the last one standing out of all of them!
Sorry everyone, I seem to be venting a lot recently, and my situation is really much easier than a lot of you are going through.
@ElderlyDilemmas , you really have perfectly described how it feels, thank you.

Family being secretive about illness sounds familiar. My DF died of cancer but the 'official' message which went out was that he had pneumonia. There seened to be a stigma associated with cancer.

For my DB there is a stigma associated with dementia, 'nice, intelligent people dont get dementia'. Dementia is something only people who arent intellectual like him get. For months he obstructed DM getting a diagnosis.

He also now seems to see a stigma in medicating DM's distress. Part of this is that he sees himself as being the superior being who can calm DM's distress and if only everyone did what he does then DM would be perfectly happy. This despite the reality that it doesnt actually matter what anyone does, DM is in her own world now.

I have told him that if I am asked then I will agree to any medication proposed.

@Scrabsqueak my DM is 85 and her DM developed dementia at about the same age. I do think there might be a family element. The anxiety is SO wearing, she was texting me for 8 hours one day last week because she'd had a phishing text message which I had checked out and told her to delete but no, she wouldn't listen, she makes mountains out of the tiniest molehills. She has always been like this, we had a very poor relationship when I was a teenager as I had to tiptoe around not telling her anything in case it set her off, but the forgetfulness and lack of availability of Dad has made it worse.

My great gran didn't develop dementia until she was in her 90s. She was still organising the church choir until she was 90.

I think there can definitely be a family element with the risk of dementia but also people are being kept alive much longer now. One of Brother's arguments for why Mum can't have dementia was that there is no family history. But as far as I'm aware only one of her parents/grandparents/aunts/uncles actually lived as long as she had. Perhaps if they hadn't been taken by something else more would have developed dementia.
I think the stigma around elderly care needs and care options is a big problem. I think for years Mum and Dad covered up what was happening with her because they didn't want to face it but also didn't want to be seen as cognitively impaired. I think we have a similar issue with care options now. I suspect Brother has some selfish reasons for not wanting to consider residential care but more than that I think he and Mum both see it as 'opting out' and a dreadful thing that only happens if family don't care. I know they were both fairly scathing in their judgement when MIL decided that FIL needed a care home (which was absolutely the best thing for him, and gave her back the ability to have some form of life for the 10years+ that he needed 24 hour care).

My DF's family (parents and 5 siblings) have all lived to 85+ with no dementia so far (parents died of stroke and cancer in their 90s, two siblings died of cancer 70s and 90s), the three still alive are absolutely fine cognitively just physical problems. I am really hoping that having got this far they won't develop it.

Sadly, I think some form of cognitive decline is inevitable as we age. Why should the brain be immune to wearing out - all our other organs and joints and bits and pieces decline to some extent too.

As with most things anatomical, some lucky few manage with minimal impact, but the rest of us have to manage a mix of issues. Eg my mum being physically very frail, mentally fades in and out but heart, liver, kidneys, lungs are all in great condition for a woman of her age.

As a society we’re doing much better these days at dealing with mental health issues and the stigma is disappearing. Hopefully that understanding will also extend into the cognitive decline that comes with age, not just those with an official dementia diagnosis. That ad on the telly showing a peaceful, clean, articulate older man in a tidy house with a sad daughter who brought a bar of chocolate drives me bananas - it’s nowhere near the reality for either of them. It leads exactly to the situation with the useless DB’s on here who seem to think their mums just need someone to make them a cup of tea and make sure they’re settled comfortably in front of the telly for the day.