Cockroach Cafe - Autumn

[rookiemere]

A new thread but the same themes, for those of us going through the ongoing challenges of supporting elderly DPs and relatives.
No judgement just support and virtual gins or tea on tap depending on your preferences.

@HeadinSandfolks sorry you are going through this, the club that no one wants to be a member of.

So long as it was properly registered with the OPG, you could try a search of the registers.

Thanks @funnelfan i think I need another chat with my sister & mum. I was the last to sign the POA and sent it back last year by registered post after my siblings had signed their parts. I’ve had nothing back and it was DH getting his quite quickly back after he signed his mums that had raised my concern, he also has 2 siblings.
Thanks I need to keep asking questions I think as I feel powerless to act if anything happens at the moment. My mums friend literally had a stroke a few weeks ago & lost her driving licence instantly and this still that hasn’t forced my mum to make any proper decisions when we really hoped it would. She is just completely in denial about any decisions being required to future proof their quality of life. In comparison my mil has done everything right down to paying for her funeral & stipulating exactly what she wants in a very practical way not morbid just wishing to lesson the burden on her kids and control her life whilst she can. It’s such a hard phase of life, I have two teens at home and would love to retire but can’t.

@rookiemere is right that once your ER is in a care home you do start to feel in a better place mentally. It’s hard when you still have both parents and one needs more care than can be provided unless you have the space and money for live in carers.

The anger and resentment does take time to diminish and I am not convinced it will ever truly go. I am still cross with my lovely Dad who when he was terminally ill made decisions about my Mum so he could die happy. The shit show I am still working through because he didn’t get a legal agreement in place or even tell me what he had done has taken years and ££ to sort out.

I have been having counselling for 3+ years where I can let out my frustrations, and swear as much as I want. Thankfully now my mum is settled in her care home I have been able to let go of a lot of my frustration with her poor judgement and slight manipulation in not facing the reality of her situation.

The only trouble is I am now really frightened of what the future holds for me as I get older.

Please allow me a self indulgent shriek.
My MIL just on the phone, op is due in a week, I’ve arranged my stay etc…thinks she might not go.
I started with all the arguments again why she needs to have it done, then thought, I can’t do this again and just said for her to tell me when she had decided.
I will not stay overnight if she doesn’t and that will cost me money as will have to book new plane ticket, but I am not staying overnight if I don’t need to.
I am so cross though, it is so risky for her not to have op, but she will not listen.
I just know in a few months I’ll be called to an emergency because she has an infection/sepsis whatever and she’ll be busy saying, oh I should have got it done when I had the chance.
I understand she’s old, lonely and afraid, but…(aaargh)

@Podgedodge is there any mileage in just saying
'The doctor recommended that you have it done. Doctors know their stuff/have your best interests/you should do what they say'
Repeat as required?

i wish @MittensTheKittens . She has got it in her head that Drs just want you to have operations. For shits and giggles presumably.Except if she thinks one is needed of course. She never quite forgave me for not having a mastectomy when I had breast cancer, as she hadn’t heard of a lumpectomy and didn’t believe it would help.
she is a law unto herself, truly.

@HeadinSandfolks I got a letter from the OPG when the LPA was registered. The actual LPA, stamped by the OPG, however, was put in a safe place by my elderly relative (ER) (the OPG sends it back to the donor after stamping it) and so my ER had to pay the OPG £35 for them to make an official copy - which I promptly whisked away.

I suppose your follow-up questions are, was the LPA actually registered with the OPG after everyone had carefully signed in the correct order? If so, where is the LPA doc now?

I went into the Halifax in town today to register the LPA I have for my ER. Which ended up being put in a small room and them ringing the right team for me and leaving me to it. Sensibly the bereavement and LPA teams are kind of All One, though some people do LPA stuff, some the bereavement stuff, so I was transferred to.. I guess... A bloke 2 desks over or something.

The sort of questions you'd expect - who is the donor, who are you, what does the LPA say on page X - and then I got an internal reference number which I had to give to the branch staff who would then scan or copy the LPA and my passport. I already have an account with them, which may have helped a little.

Yeah - now I wait "up to 13 working days". I was very clear that ER needs to retain access to her money so fingers crossed they don't mess that up.

That LPA predated the Magic Code Stuff.

In other news ER's Saintly Cleaner has buggered her knee so is properly out of action. I'm not worrying about this until ER is home though. "Sufficient unto the day is the evils thereof".

The workmen arrive before 8 and get stuck in with gusto, so I feel like it's 10pm when it's not even 6 yet. Zzz

Ah, that's not helpful.
How about ' but the surgeon has arranged his whole day around your operation, you wouldn't want to disappoint him would you?' 😉
(Obviously all surgeons are male in this situation).

DM is pottering around the ward causing trouble at the moment, she's the most mobile, but, still confused and therefore nosy!
I'm hopeful that they find her a bed in a 'halfway house' ward where she has some others to talk to and get into trouble with.

Thanks for the help I’ve found the request form if I need it for OPG, I also asked one of my siblings today but they hadn’t seen anything either. So I’m going to see if I can find out any more before submitting the opg form.

DM still in hospital. Medically she's pretty much over the UTI and the confusion is slowly improving but she's far from 100%.

She's likely to be there for a while longer as the care home is reviewing if they can accept her return but it's looking like they'll probably refuse. I don't blame them as she needs more care than they can provide. But it's delaying things and I'm dreading her reaction if/when it's decided she needs to be in a nursing home.

Plus I've got a minor op on Friday that means I'll need to take a short break from travelling to go and see her. My adult DCs have offered to go instead but, honestly, she's so emotionally volatile at the moment that I really don't feel comfortable sending them.

@JeffLebowski understand your reluctance to send anyone in your stead. It’s not unusual though for the ER to be all sweetness and light with other family members and save their worst behaviour for you as their ‘safe person’.

Go easy on yourself. Easier said than done of course but nevertheless …

But, @JeffLebowski , maybe the key is in how you refer to them - ADULT children?

So if they're adults, and they're offering to go, you're not "sending" them. They've offered. Perhaps they feel they'd like to, or need to, see her? Perhaps they would like to lessen your load a little?

So the care home visit was mixed.

the home itself is fine but the hospital, my dad and my BWIG ( brother who is god ) failed to mention my mum was very aggressive until recently when they had to do personal care. She sometimes needed 3 people to change her. The home are clear they can’t manage her if she returns to that level of aggression.
The worst case scenario is for her to go there then need to be moved as my dad would find that very traumatic. We all know a move for someone with dementia can be very unsettling so I am very worried the aggression will return.
my dad is not coping and very tearful but also fixated on the 1 care home near his house so I will be the bad guy if I question the move as they don’t realise the real possibility it’s not the right home.

can I check into the fantasy spa hotel with no WiFi or phone reception now please ?

Solidarity to everyone struggling with unreasonable demands from ER. @Podgedodge you must have the patience of a saint to still be willing to take time off to help your MIL when she's being so unrealistic!

We've just had a weekend away as a birthday celebration for one of my DC. I answered a call from DM on Sunday, thinking it was just possible it was a birthday greetings call for my DC (didn't expect DM to remember but Brother knew that was why we were away)- but no, it was a list of things she and Brother want me to do. I reminded her we were away and why, and said I'd call yesterday. The call was a list of things that could (and I think should) mainly be outsourced but she and Brother refuse. I'm trying to take a step back from being the default 'person who does anything inconvenient or time consuming' so have once again reiterated the point re getting paid help. Which of course resulted in accusations and tears. Why don't you care? Why won't you do anything for me ever? Why do you leave everything to Brother? etc. The latest response (from Brother as well as DM, who can be forgiven for misunderstanding) to any suggestion of paid help is to ignore the 'paid' part, agree that yes we should be getting more help and then complain that other friends and family are not queueing up to act as unpaid carers.

A call from the carer last night to say DM was on the floor. No serious injuries but she couldn’t explain or remember how she fell or why she hadn’t pressed her lifeline alarm so we have no idea how long she’d been there .

She was in the bedroom but a vase of flowers had been knocked over in the living room so she must have crawled from there.

She was very tired so I put her to bed and waited until she was asleep. Will pop back up in a bit.

I’ll have to call the care agency and social services later to see if we can fit in an extra visit or get a review or something.

@bigdogpaws I know that bitter disappointment when there’s a birthday or anniversary on your side and when the phone buzzes you have this insane hope that DP has remembered and is thinking of you like the old them would have done, only for it to be some barked order or real or imagined emergency.

Hold strong, I am very much of the view that anything that can be outsourced for a fee - particularly domestic or gardening which is relatively cheap compared to care costs - should be.

@Podgedodge is it the actual operation or the aftermath she’s more scared of? When my DM was about to have her cataracts done she was terrified of sneezing or accidentally moving during the procedure. Telling her that the surgeon had done thousands of these before and had seen every possible problem, seemed to reassure her a bit. She did go through with it. Would it help to say that for the surgeon, this is very routine and they’ll know exactly what they’re doing, nothing new or risky, etc?

@MotherOfCatBoy .
It’s very much the aftermath. She was in the hospital for three weeks when it was fitted and got an ulcer at the same time. Her prolapse was very serious by this point, was causing her a lot of pain and really impacted her life. She was taken in as an emergency the day after by BILs funeral, so it was an abviously incredibly difficult time and a lot of emotion is tied up in it, which I am trying to be sensitive to. Then she came home, was unable to climb the stairs and spent 6 months sleeping sitting up on couch which caused cellulitis. No one knew this because she told us she was sleeping on the couch but there was no suggestion that she wasn’t lying down and she just didn’t tell anyone. I was not able to visit much as I was working full time then and she was having visits by carers and district nurses and a cousin and we all just didn’t know. It’s all come out since and understandably she is scared to go back to that.
I have explained till I am blue in the face (backed up by my phone calls to surgical ward) that there is no reason for this to happen if she has an elective operation now, whereas if she waits until it becomes an emergency it is far less predictable.
Because the pessary is not causing her any problems just now, that she can see or feel, she thinks it will be fine if she just leaves it. Which it may be for a while but is essentially a ticking time bomb, but she lacks the imagination or forethought or future proofing gene to think ahead and be pre emptive. That to her is being pessimistic. She’s currently asking me if I’ll be mad at her if she refuses the op, and keeps asking me what I think but I simply cannot keep saying the same thing over and over and being totally ignored or disregarded, neither can I decide on her behalf she needs to have an operation. Nor am I going to tell her she doesn’t need to have it.
I just wish she’d make a decision and own it.
@BestIsWest , that’s concerning. I hope you can find a solution to safeguard your DM. Not knowing what happened is a worry.
@bigdogpaws ,I’m really sorry there were not birthday greetings forthcoming. That little rush of hope is always hardest to deal with.
I retired last year, so am technically much more available. I will not put the rest of my life on hold though, even though she has no comprehension of what my actual life involves and thinks I sit on my couch waiting for her phone call about the weather and her bins…

Do you suppose dementia is contagious? DB seems to be in a constant fear that 'people' will get to know that DM is in a CH so her home is standing empty. The latest thing was insisting that the TV licence still has to be paid otherwise 'people' would know DM isnt there.

He goes pretty much every day to 'check up'. This checking takes several hours (a modest sized bungalow).

@GnomeDePlume It sounds like your DB has a lovely comfortable hidey hole away from everyone else. He can go and watch TV in comfort with no criticism as he is “looking after” his mums home.

@FinallyHere and @Eclipsing thank you. I do see the point you're both making. When they offered to go and see DM it wasn't like I forbade them from going but I did say that I thought it wouldn't be a good idea right now. Maybe I'm underestimating both them and DM. I'll have a think.

@GnomeDePlume That sounds familiar. My Brother refuses to allow me to do anything that could be seen as making it 'official' that DM no longer lives in her own home (eg. changing her address with the GP, cancelling TV subscriptions and most worryingly changing her house insurance to empty property insurance). I think as a pp suggested, in our case it's definitely partly to create a hideout for him and a good excuse to stay there occasionally. But I suspect there's also an element of not wanting to have to finally admit that her situation is permanent. He's always relied quite heavily on our parents so to effectively 'close up' what he sees as his family home means that is definitely all over.

My Brother is still saying that their plan is for his family to move to 'the family home' with DM but it's been about a year now and there have been no movements towards that. I can't really understand why the delay if this really is their plan, since the empty home is in the same town as his, about twice the size and has a separate accessible bathroom that DM could use. But that's probably a discussion for an entirely different thread.

@JeffLebowski I understand the reluctance to send your DC. Mine are both young adults but I would be wary of them getting involved in 'helping' DM. Mainly because I know how much pressure is put on me to do more, stay longer, commit to more etc and I don't want to put them in that position too. Could they perhaps visit together just to see her, but with a clear 'get-out' plan (an invented gathering in the area, or place they need to be later in the day).

I am very much with @bigdogpawsand @JeffLebowskion the subject of involving adult DCs actively in their DGPs care. Because of DMs dementia I am very much seen by her as the fixer of problems and provider of items, not really as a DD anymore. It’s not her fault of course, but it is hurtful and I wouldn’t want to place DS in that position.
DF is similar although at least he says please and thank you.

As they are now in the care home demands on me have reduced but it’s still emotionally draining and I don’t see why two generations need to be so impacted by it. This is different from social visits which we do encourage and support as they get joy from seeing him. Maybe I am babying him, I don’t know he’s only 20 and because both DPs have dementia one needs to remain calm and neutral in their company and tread a well worn loop of small non controversial conversation.

I've just had a call saying that DM is medically fit.
That's news to me, the were just starting her on a new drug today and we had to check it worked for a couple days first.
Also sending her home at the moment would be like letting a 10 year old live alone with people popping in 60% chance of it being ok, but also a high chance of chaos, fire or flood between visits. 🙄

@rookiemere I agree. Dementia definitely makes it more pronounced but I think many people become quite selfish and unreasonable when it comes to expectations of care from family. DM is in the earlier stages of dementia but already sees friends and family primarily as potential 'fixers' rather than individuals with their own lives. I'm finding it hard enough to push back from that so don't want my DC to be drawn in to it. I feel certain that if they once step in to 'fix' something rather than just visit for a chat they will, in the minds of DM and Brother, become part of the solution and a reason why of course we don't need organise any proper paid care/day-care/respite care/cleaners etc. I don't think it's babying our DC to keep them out of this. I don't want them to become default carers for me in old age so I definitely don't want them to become that for my DM.