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.

Basically yes, I also have the option of deflecting to DB sometimes depending what it's about. Leaving several hours to reply to texts slows down the flow, as does declining calls sometimes. Oh and I have her texts muted and check them in my own time
rather than being pinged. If I answer I sometimes tell a white lie (I'm working, I'm out somewhere) to escape otherwise I can be on the phone for an hour (she's forgetful and deaf so a lot of repetition).

Thanks @ElderlyDilemmas my DSis gets lots of calls too, amazingly, my DB not so much!

I think slowing the flow is a good idea, I'm probably too quick to respond.

A word of warning - I wouldn't put "no pain relief other than morphine" into an AD. Morphine may not be available; it may not be suitable; you might get s/effects worse than the pain, etc etc.

It might be better to put in something like "appropriate pain relief as required", then you would still get something (which might even be morphine). Otherwise you could even find yourself in a position of not receiving analgesia because someone decrees that morphine isn't appropriate, and you have in advance refused all other forms of analgesia.

What @Eclipsing said re morphine. My dad and FIL both suffered severe hallucinations on morphine. Luckily for dad he could tolerate low doses but FIL couldn't at all. And with bone metastases you need whatever pain relief works.

@Exhaustedpickletheres no point discussing boundaries, particularly if elderly relative is cognitively impaired, just start switching your phone off and letting calls go to voicemail. In your case it sounds like there are other people who can be contacted, so if it’s something urgent, then they can call them. If you wanted to let other people know I would suggest your siblings. If they’re reasonable people you could suggest an on call rota.

@Exhaustedpicklejust remembered your DM is in a care home, in which case turn off your phone overnight and only respond to a reasonable volume of calls. If you want let the care home know what you’re doing, but they should contact you anyway in a genuine emergency.

Before, I kept getting sucked into anxiety spirals by text, me trying to explain things and reassure was just making mum worse and worse and inevitably the discussions got heated. Now I try not to respond for a couple of hours in the hopes that she puts her phone down and does something else and it does seem to help. But not every time, sometimes I find a whole string of more and more frantic texts. Problem is mine is still at home, alone, so I might miss a genuine emergency, she's the boy that cried wolf.

US relatives have gone and it wasn’t as bad as I feared, not having them to stay at the house really helped with things.I have a great need for order after the past year and they are very much on the other side of things and it was good not being too impacted by their last minute nature, and not offering a free AI service as well.

DM seems to have had a decline and is leaning heavily to one side in her bed. I googled and it’s apparently Pisa syndrome, named after guess what! I don’t know if any of you have come across this. AI seems to suggest this is likely to mean she’s in her final weeks or months, I hope for everyone’s sake this is true as she has pretty much lost her sight, speech and mobility now. She doesn’t seem to be in any additional pain. We have ruled out taking her to the hospital. Conveniently I have a six month review meeting at the care home tomorrow so can find out where they think she is on the trajectory.

This sounds awful but I wanted to ask the care home which funeral company they use so I can start looking at options and prices. I know I could use another company but I don’t have a strong preference and keeping it like that will presumably keep it easier. I don’t want to pay over the odds though. Do you think I can ask or does it sound particularly hard hearted ?

Gawd I sound so cold. Relatives DH asked me when I was here if I remembered the lively, kind person DM was, I replied that in order to get through the visits I have to switch off most of myself and focus on calm neutral responses that she can cope with. If I started to think about it and let in emotions, it would be overwhelming. I hope that’s relatively normal.

I think it's fine to ask. They likely have a default one for residents without family support or if eg family are abroad and a resident dies unexpectedly. I asked at DDad''s home and they said they are happy to make a note of a family preference. My parents booked slots at an eco burial ground a few years ago, I called them up and asked which ones they worked with regularly and then gave three of them a ring for a chat (this was when Dad had a bad turn and lost three siblings/ILs in a month which focussed my mind, he's ok again at the moment). I then made a note of which one I preferred. I also went to the burial ground to have a look at their options for holding service/wake there, it is in the middle of nowhere of course and logistics on the day could be complicated especially in winter. It's all I can do for now but I feel better for having some plans ready.

@GnomeDePlumejust a thought re the diabetes treatment- dependent on what type of diabetes, you might want to reconsider, as you really don’t want to go into diabetic ketoacidosis, it’s awful. Just something to consider x

That sounds like a very normal and sensible coping mechanism to me

@ElderlyDilemmasthank you I will ask
about funeral homes tomorrow. I know there will be a lot of admin once the inevitable happens be that in six weeks, months or years, so I would feel better if I could have as much prepared as possible.

I also had a chat with chat GPT about the logistics part of it, where people held wakes locally etc that was quite helpful.

Thank you. I turned my phone off last night and felt guilty when I woke up and had a text saying she needed to talk to someone. That was 10.30pm and then I had a missed call from 11pm.

She does ring my DSis a lot too so I have that support though it's not nice for her either.

@ElderlyDilemmas that sounds really stressful. It's so hard to make the decision to ignore when it could be a genuine emergency but I think in the interests of sanity it has to be done sometimes. My DM rings me a lot "by accident" (I'm not entirely convinced...) so if I answered every call I'd never be off the phone and it sounds like you're in a similar situation.

@rookiemere you don't sound cold. You sound like someone trying to get through the impossible.

Do not disturb setting on the phone. I simply don’t receive the phone calls during my work/commute time or during the night.

I never even thought of that! Does the person ringing just have the call go to voicemail or does it ring out?

And I’ve stopped replying immediately to texts or WhatsApp. Let several hours go by.

Funnily enough she doesn’t like bothering Goldenballs because he’s so busy (being a man) so she wouldn’t keep trying to phone or text him!

She's rung me twice while I've been reading this thread!

It's amazing isn't it how having a pair of balls protects you from this stuff. I wonder if I can order myself a set on Amazon. 🤔

I've had DKA (I didn't know that's what was happening or I would have got treatment earlier) and it wasn't that bad, not painful or anything just nausea and tiredness/breathlessness. The ICU stay and the recovery was a bitch, but if you want to be allowed to die from it then there are worse ways to go.

I've always had Do Not Disturb on but have actually switched it off now with dad being in a home, I had their number listed as priority to bypass DND but they called an ambulance for him in the night and the paramedics tried calling me on their phone and I missed the calls because it wasn't one of my known numbers. Mum doesn't ring in the night though just a stream of texts so muting deals with that. If she starts I will have to think again. She is one of those people who only needs about 4 hours sleep at night <sighs>

Definitely choose a funeral director - and let the company know they are preferred as it makes an out of hours death simpler. We used a locally based company and found they have managed to stay in business because they are very good and pretty transparent with pricing.

Not cold at all - there will be a lot of decisions to make and this is one you can make in advance to help your future self 💐

Ultimately, yes, I want to be allowed to die once I am no longer able to make my own decisions.

One of my issues with DB is that he keeps saying DM shouldnt be allowed to die of this or that because it will be horrible (normally in some unspecified way). Except by doing this DB is blocking the more 'gentle' ways to die. So DM keeps being treated for things.

I will take on board what people say about not only allowing morphine. I have had morphine and am one of the lucky people who had no bad reaction to it. Apart from post surgery being very determined that the dog wanted an ice cream.

@rookiemere being planned for funerals is sensible. I have the number of one of the local funeral directors in my phone. At some point I may want it in a hurry as the care home needs to have deceased residents removed from the premises promptly.

For my ER, our preferred funeral directors was one of the pieces of info the care home wanted to have on file. I’m not sure it was from when she moved in, possibly later on as she declined, but they definitely spoke to us about it, quite a while before she was on end of life care.

it did make things easier - my mother who was the other attorney actually went and prepaid for a funeral as she was worried about paying for it - even though I said the bank would release funds , and if they didn’t I could easily pay for it and claim it back later (I was executor). However sorting it all in advance made her feel better at the time and did make it easier when the time came, as the home knew who to call etc.