Cockroach cafe - summer

[GnomeDePlume]

A new thread.

This is a place where anyone dealing with elderly parents/relatives/friends can rant, vent, scream into the void.

There is no judgement just understanding, support and good advice.

This sounds very hard. I wonder if he makes an effort with staff as he knows on some level that he has a different, more formal relationship with them.

Ahh, I've had a weird conversation with my mum.
We normally have a chat on a Thursday or Friday, she called me while I was on the train home from work wondering why I hadn't called her. She thought it much later in the week.
I'm not sure if she was bored and wanted a chat or genuinely confused.

This is the second or third time she's got confused about days/times etc recently.
When we were discussing timings with the optician last week she didn't seem to be retaining the info.

I can't work out if I should be really worried, mildly concerned or she's 82 and it just one of those things?😕

Keep an eye on it. It might be a first sign of something, it might be she’s a bit under the weather.

Mine has done similar in the past but when I’ve mentioned concerns to
friends they haven’t noticed anything!

I noticed when my parents retired they lost track of what day it was sometimes just because they didn't have the structure of work, but at 80 plus I guess its a long time since retirement so worth keeping an eye on. But I just had 11 days off (a week plus my non-working days and bank hol Mon) and also completely lost track of days.

My first real concern about Mum was the last time she came to our house, a couple of years ago, having not been for about 6 months before that. She squealed when a cat walked into the garden and approached the house. That was our cat that we'd had for 10 years and she had no recollection of even though she visited weekly for childcare for the first few years of us having the cat. She said "I didn't know you had a cat". But it has been a gradual loss of memory and still no dementia diagnosis.

DB has managed to be rude to nursing staff again.

DM very sick early this morning so given an anti sickness drug. Nurse told DB when he arrived to visit DM. DB straightaway complains about not having been told sooner. I told DB that the nurse was probably busy checking her other charges, trying to find out if this was the start of a sickness bug in the CH.

Does DB take this on board? No of course he doesnt, just continues to wang on.

Unfortunately DB has decided that whatever this particular nurse does, she is wrong. He knows better. This despite him having less than no medical knowledge. That she hasnt lamped him with a bedpan is testament to her forebearance.

@GnomeDePlume oh dear, the thing that stuck out from this update was one single word “again” . I’m so sorry , it really is no help when people are rude.

Hope your DM recovers from the sickness (bug?) soon.

Thank you @BeMintFatball yes, DB is frequently rude to staff at the CH.

He knows less than nothing about medicine or biology in general - actively believes things which are demonstrably false. He is rude, patronising and xenophobic.

DM is apparently better now.

ugh. Feeling very unsure this evening.

I haven't seen my mum since the end of last year, when she was seriously ill.

early this year she rang and told me she didn't want me to visit again as she got too stressed about my "disapproval of the way she is happy to live". (I get very DIStressed about the squalor* in which she lives and the fact that she would prefer not to see me than to get the place cleaned). We speak on the phone weekly and I am very careful not to say anything contentious which means that we get on OK in a superficial manner.

This is on a background of my having a lifetime of being intermittently rejected by her. The only way to gain favour was to be pretty (when I was little) and academically successful as I got older.

Anyway. I know that she recently got a vacuum cleaner after at least 6 years without (as I mentioned a few pages ago). I am now told by my sister that she has got a cleaner! As in, someone to go into the house and clean!

She did actually employ a cleaner very briefly when she came out of hospital at the end of last year but that cleaner was hopeless, I could do more in an hour there than she was doing in 5 (and I'd do it for free). So I'm not sorry to hear that she has arranged another cleaner, I just hope that this one isn't also a workshy ripoff artist.

So I'm not sure what will happen next. I've been thinking I should/might go for a visit, though not to the house, I could maybe arrange to take my mother out for lunch or something. My OH will come with me to act as a buffer should it all go off the rails again (quite possible).

(*"squalor". Examples - thick festoons of dusty cobwebs hanging from the ceilings. Evil smell that hits as you enter the house. Dead fly squashed onto the door jamb for months without being cleaned off. Black mould spots all over walls, windows, furniture in one room. Puddle of stagnant liquid with blue mould in it at the bottom of the microwave. Faecal matter on top of the toilet lid. Dead rat in the middle of the lawn. All this and more spotted on the last couple of visits. I can't cope with this level of dirt and stench. I find it really distressing that my mother lives like this. I feel almost weepy just typing it. And I'm desperately embarrassed that anyone might think that I, as her daughter, "allow" her - a "lovely old lady"- to live like this).

No, don’t! Hold fast! Wait until you are invited, and then only go if you want to.

It’s possible she resists all the more stubbornly for you’re having mentioned it. She might feel safe enough to do it now, because no one ‘told’ her to do it. She is choosing to do it herself.

And don’t fix what isn’t broken. Sounds like she’s doing ok at the moment- improving. Don’t upset the apple cart!

The idea of visiting preceded my learning about the new cleaner. I don't want to never see my mother again and the only way around that is to visit.

She won't invite me. She never does, never has. She got rid of the bed in the spare room many years ago (how to make absent family welcome?!) so when I go, I always have to get a hotel/Airbnb, and as the situation in the house deteriorated I was actually glad to have a reason not to stay. But I'd still go to the house to see her. The difference now is that I wouldn't do the latter.

Basically if I'm to see her again in this life, the impetus will have to come from me. She has usually seemed pleased to see me on
my biannual visits!

I can identify with this to an extent. DM does enjoy my visits and makes it easy to stay but she makes it impossible to help her so instead of doing a little admin and enjoying our visit she stonewalls and makes everything seem impossible so we end up arguing constantly surrounded by (material and administrative) chaos.
I can absolutely identify with the shame of being a daughter who “allows” it.

One of the bits we just managed to do last night was to change her address on two crucial income-related items which, if they had failed to contact her at the old address would have meant half her income would have been stopped. She has been at the new address since the beginning of June, I’ve reminded her at least weekly and it’s in our shared calendar.

The thing I didn’t realise about this stage of life is how much it brings up childhood wounds. I hear having children is similar and I chose not to do that!

DM had a physio appointment today at 12. According to Google Maps the physio is a 6 minute walk from her apartment (not a daunting distance for her) so we planned to leave at 11:30 so we could walk over together.

She faffed around all morning while I took the dog out twice, made her coffee and breakfast, fed dog, got directions etc etc then around 11:30 she said “maybe” she would cancel because she supposedly didn’t feel well, then said she wasn’t walking, she would take the car, and eventually she left by herself at 11:45.

I had a look at her messages to find the address (not snooping, one of my roles as unpaid administrative assistant is to have access to her communications, how else could I be expected to do absolutely everything?) and saw that she hadn’t done any of the paperwork they all seem to require now, in which case they asked that you arrive 30 minutes before your appointment, so I found out at 11:30 that she was already late for her appointment at 12.

I realise now I should have double checked all this stuff when she first made the appointment, or even last night, but I was probably dealing some other pointless crisis, I can’t seem to get on top of it.

My whole childhood was chaotic like this, never leaving or arriving on time, running around like your hair was on fire, being dressed down for being late for everything and always lying about various crises one had encountered that were responsible. It has taken me decades to get on top of the anxiety and disorganisation, to understand and learn how to plan accurately, how to move around in the world as a normal adult.

I’m sure that all sounds very dramatic! 😀 But it’s the truth.

And it hurts my feelings that she doesn’t realise she is judged for this, that she will encounter resistance when she constantly cancels or reschedules appointments at the last minute, that this does affect how she is seen and how she is treated.

I have made an interesting discovery.
My work offer, as part of their benefits scheme, access to the Legal and General care concierge service.
https://www.legalandgeneral.com/retirement/care/care-concierge/

I spoke to them earlier briefly and they seem like a lovely team who can provide information in an objective way.
I asked them about retirement/extra care housing and they've sent me a whole bunch of info to have a look at.

I hope this might help someone else.

Pouring strength with a twist of solidarité for those of you in the trenches 🍸🍸🍸. I read something that resonated with me about loss being complicated by reliving all the decisions and choices you were forced to make for the person who couldn’t. I’m on the sidelines for now with various health issues among surviving older relatives on a low simmer. But I was definitely the [bad] ‘daughter who allowed it’ @Eclipsing and @trainedopossum. I know all the feelings of shame that I wasn’t up to the [impossible] task of ‘making’ our Dad transform his home or tackle habits of a lifetime. I deeply understand the frustration at the lack of preparation and lateness to appointments, whatever you try!

@MittensTheKittens cynically, I wonder if that originated in something like,
"What do you mean, our senior counsel is taking a fortnight's unpaid leave to try and find a care home for his mother? Can't his wife do - oh. I forgot. Very sad. Well doesn't he have a sis-- oh, only child?"

I’m comforted (though sorry for you) that you understand the lateness experience. It doesn’t help that most old people seem to schedule everything for first thing in the morning and arrive an hour early so DM sticks out like the proverbial sore thumb and it makes it look like I’m the problem! (Probably sounding paranoid now 🙃 which I am.)

We had a real set to yesterday after she attempted and missed her physio appointment (and belatedly attempted another admin appointment where we discovered some crucial paperwork was missing signatures so the whole day went out the window).

I mentioned booking a flight in November and she said not to come, I’m here too much and she doesn’t need me to be here for the holiday because they “probably” have a special dinner or something here in the building. So in reality I predict that will play out with her sitting alone in her flat because she hasn’t participated in the activities here unless I’m here and I go with her. But I would love to be wrong about that.

This is a huge departure from the norm, DM is usually eager for me to come. So I will take a step back I guess… and possibly end up booking a flight when the price has doubled after I find out she has made no plans.

@MysterOfwomanY
It also wouldn't surprise me if it was originally an internal thing which L&G have subsequently monitised and now share with others.

As this thread has conveniently filled up to coincide with the end of summer, I have started a new thread here https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/elderly_parents/5577860-cockroach-cafe-autumn?utm_campaign=thread&utm_medium=app_share