Nice people thread part 4 - sugar and spice and all things

lemonjelly

LydiaJ wrote: »

Happy Birthday lemonjelly. Do we ask if it's a round number?

:j:beer:_party_



Who is this "we" who has to shop for milk daily? I thought you were living alone and single, and that lir was trying to find you a nice girl?

Not a round number this year.

The we is how I tend to talk, though it also refers to the time I was living with my folks. It also refers to the friends I kinda house share with at certain (busy) times of year.

silvercar

PN, I've just had a chat to someone who lost a "caring" parent about a year ago. It's hard for all sorts of reasons, she said that the hardest thing was the need to be hard on the surviving parent in order to move forward. You and siblings have lives waiting to be returned to. For surviving old their lives won't be the same again. I think one of the issues is that you are self funding. People who are used to flexing their cheque book behave differently to those used to seeing what the services provide. Given that you are self funding you need to behave accordingly. Said friend got a full time carer in after the initial grief. So the children returned to their lives and the carer looked after remaining parent. Parent was told that this was for an initial month trial, after which parent had a choice - either remain in home with carer or move to residential care. Parent lasted 6 months with carer in home and then wanted to leave memories behind and moved to care home.

My friend said one of the hardest things is getting remaining parent to understand that the children need to return to their lives, something that can never happen for the bereaved parent. Of course at tbhe time the children were around and organising but the parent hopes they will stick around for ever, so detaching is difficult. The longer you leave it the worse it becomes, as parent gets used to it.

Davesnave

silvercar wrote: »

The longer you leave it the worse it becomes, as parent gets used to it.

Sorry, coming in very late to this, but I agree that if Pastures plays a filling-in role for long, the problem will just be covered-up, not resolved, so look upon the present situation as temporary.

It's frustrating that the bereaved old person wants to put things back the way they were, but totally understandable. Like children, old folk are often 'selfish' because their thought processes are limited, but even knowing this, it's terribly hard not to be angry with them (and equally hard not to feel guilty for being angry!:()

It doesn't sound like the old needs 24/7 help, just part time, like my Dad had, as there was no way I could be there 2-3 times a day, every day. My guess is that the old will not find this enough from an emotional POV and will soon want something different from living at home.

Yes, you will get 'just a list of agencies' and it seems very uncaring & impersonal, but my experience was that those faceless agencies have some lovely, down to earth people who do the work. I would start by giving a few a try.

Davesnave

Belated Happy Birthday to LJ and James

Thanks also to Lydia for the PV info.....:) I will get back to you on that when things here are a bit quieter!

GDB2222

PasturesNew wrote: »

I didn't know there was an emergency number. That'd be no good, they'd decide what the old needs and put it in place and it costs a fortune.....

Assuming you will eventually get one-third of the residue in the estate, then whatever is spent now is costing you personally only one-third. It's a bargain for you, as your sibs will be picking up the other two-thirds from their share of the estate. OTOH, you are the one who will benefit most from this expenditure, so stop being mean with yourself!




we need to decide what the old needs and how often. e.g. when they did an assessment they said the old needed help getting up/dressed .... but the old has to be up and dressed and to have got downstairs and to have unlocked and unbolted two doors to let somebody in that'd help them get up.

No, we've been there with MIL. The bolts will have to be left unbolted, and the locks beefed up as necessary to compensate. Then a key safe is screwed to the outside of the house (with keys inside!) so the carers can let themselves in.


They totally didn't understand the old's needs, nor think it through.

The old can get up/dressed and unlock the doors OK. So their 'assessment' was pure drivel. I have no confidence in them - if you're self-funding they've no time for you. The assessment was a farce too, took about 6 weeks and they just sent us a money-wasting pack of garbage that the old couldn't have understood (neither did we to be honest). So it's been put in the pile because the bottom line is it's just a list of agencies where you can hire the people to come in and do stuff.

So, you've gone into the unpaid carer business in competition with these people. Well, you can certainly beat them on price, but it's eating you up. And you are right that you are in danger of being sucked into this for years to come. I just wonder whether the money you save is worth putting your life on hold for?

Of course, what you may actually need is just a paid daily cleaner for a few hours a day, say. But it all comes down to you again. You have to organise that, and so on. Personally, I'd just get in my car and drive off.

Right now, my wife is off with MIL to a hospital appointment. The same yesterday. An operation has been organised at the end of the month. MIL has made an appointment to see the physio this afternoon, even though she will be tired out from the hospital appointment, and last time it lasted nearly all day, anyway. It's driving DW up the wall.

GDB2222

Can the nice people help me with a translation, please? DD has offered to write some freelance pieces for a local rag, and they have written back as follows:

"I particularly like the ..... piece, which I’d be happy to publish with some alterations.

Our opinion pieces need a news hook, so if you can identify a topical angle and edit down to 750 words I’d happily run it in the paper.

I am very keen to increase the number of female columnists in the paper – you seem right up my street!

Now for the bad news… we don’t pay for op eds. We run 5-7 a week so simply cannot afford it.

I can offer a modest fee (around £60) for news features, but not first-person pieces."

What are op eds?
First-person pieces?
£60 for 750 words sounds like not a lot. Is that the going rate?

PasturesNew

silvercar wrote: »

Would it be too terrible to hire someone to come in for the weekend, so you and siblings can have a whole weekend with no responsibilities for the old?

Yes .... and siblings don't have responsibilities as they're not here. One 'visits', but you have to live here to be able to do anything - and the house is too complex to get somebody else to live here and understand it/take it on.

PasturesNew

GDB2222 wrote: »

Can the nice people help me with a translation, please? DD has offered to write some freelance pieces for a local rag, and they have written back as follows:

"I particularly like the ..... piece, which I’d be happy to publish with some alterations.

Our opinion pieces need a news hook, so if you can identify a topical angle and edit down to 750 words I’d happily run it in the paper.

I am very keen to increase the number of female columnists in the paper – you seem right up my street!

Now for the bad news… we don’t pay for op eds. We run 5-7 a week so simply cannot afford it.

I can offer a modest fee (around £60) for news features, but not first-person pieces."

What are op eds?
First-person pieces?
£60 for 750 words sounds like not a lot. Is that the going rate?

Complete guess, but "op eds" sounds to me like "opinion editorials", so writing your opinion about something.

First-person = "I took a walk and was surprised to see how shabby the whole area looked. I went into ... I ... I ... I"

£60 for 750 words doesn't sound too shabby at all. I could knock out 750 words in an exceedingly short time.

What they're looking for is newsy items. Things that relate to local news, to what's going on. Take a news story and create a story round it.

PasturesNew

One of the problems is interpreting what the old thinks they need/says they need ... and then matching that to what's available ... and the old is becoming unpredictable.,.. thinks they can just get the local paper and rent a flat for example.

Anyway, search extended, going to see somewhere with them tomorrow, it's 20 miles away - couldn't fit it in today as the old is at the Centre and will be tired when they get back and they get back too late for me to take them to the place even if I whisked them straight into the car and away.

Also, got to chase up where the old is on the council list as they've exceeded the deadline they gave for getting onto the list, then it's a whole bidding thing.

The trouble is, you're not sitting choosing things, you're knee-jerk reacting to what's available right now, which isn't ideal.... given a year to think about it and look around and if the old were choosing/deciding with a full set of choice-making marbles it'd be a different ball game. But the old doesn't make decisions and, when pushed, just spurts out any old solution without understanding the implications, processes or anything. Old's never had to make choices/decisions before, so tends to go along with what we say they want .... which caused disaster number 1. Spent days/hours researching/visiting/interviewing everywhere to come up with the last solution and there was nothing better.... so now it's been rejected we have to investigate more options further afield.

michaels

Not sure that the 750 words applies to News features only opinion pieces.

So you could write a short piece on littering and dog fouling - may be get a quote form Neighbourhood watch and local neighbourhood PCSO and include a photo for your 60 quid and then follow up with an 'editorial' on how 'something must be done' but that would only be for the glory.