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

LydiaJ

Pastures,
You are working very hard to sort things out, but I'm not at all convinced that you are trying to do the right things. To put it bluntly, your old is not capable of living independently, and is quite possibly never going to be capable of doing so. There is no point in sorting her house out unless there is someone able bodied and properly compos mentis who is prepared to live there with her to look after her. But there isn't, unless you get sucked into that role, which none of us wants you to. I'm not convinced she would manage very well in a sheltered flat, either. I'm not sure that most of them provide the level of care that she would need if you weren't there. Please try again to persuade her to give the care home another try - the one where she ended up meeting the nice people and was happy for a few days before throwing her toys out of the pram. Or at least discuss her care with the carers and emergency whoever-they-are, and emphasise that you are not going to be permanently available to keep visiting on a daily basis, and see what sort of place they think she needs to move to.

lostinrates

LydiaJ wrote: »

Pastures,
You are working very hard to sort things out, but I'm not at all convinced that you are trying to do the right things. To put it bluntly, your old is not capable of living independently, and is quite possibly never going to be capable of doing so. There is no point in sorting her house out unless there is someone able bodied and properly compos mentis who is prepared to live there with her to look after her. But there isn't, unless you get sucked into that role, which none of us wants you to. I'm not convinced she would manage very well in a sheltered flat, either. I'm not sure that most of them provide the level of care that she would need if you weren't there. Please try again to persuade her to give the care home another try - the one where she ended up meeting the nice people and was happy for a few days before throwing her toys out of the pram. Or at least discuss her care with the carers and emergency whoever-they-are, and emphasise that you are not going to be permanently available to keep visiting on a daily basis, and see what sort of place they think she needs to move to.

I really agree with all of this. Lydia really DOES have her head screwed on right.

Doozergirl

LydiaJ wrote: »

Pastures,
You are working very hard to sort things out, but I'm not at all convinced that you are trying to do the right things. To put it bluntly, your old is not capable of living independently, and is quite possibly never going to be capable of doing so. There is no point in sorting her house out unless there is someone able bodied and properly compos mentis who is prepared to live there with her to look after her. But there isn't, unless you get sucked into that role, which none of us wants you to. I'm not convinced she would manage very well in a sheltered flat, either. I'm not sure that most of them provide the level of care that she would need if you weren't there. Please try again to persuade her to give the care home another try - the one where she ended up meeting the nice people and was happy for a few days before throwing her toys out of the pram. Or at least discuss her care with the carers and emergency whoever-they-are, and emphasise that you are not going to be permanently available to keep visiting on a daily basis, and see what sort of place they think she needs to move to.

I agree. We can start looking into grants for OAPs for proper electrics, insulation and boiler etc but I'm not sure it's the right thing either. Falling over, being frail and unable to walk properly, confused and unable to organise anything at all sounds to me like someone who needs proper, full time care.

The old may not like it - heck I wouldn't particularly enjoy being moved out of the family home either, but if I wasn't able to care for myself and unable to realise that I wasn't, then the 'real' me would be okay with my family doing what is best. Throwing toys out of the pram is entirely to be expected, the people who work in homes must be completely used to toys being thrown initially (indeed, thrown constantly, with some even more challenging behaviour to contend with with certain patients - it's part of the symptoms and the reason they need that care).

And at some point, the dust will settle and you will have at least some peace of mind that dinners are provided, that there is the possibility of some companionship and that someone is watching over her for falls etc. God forbid if she fell not long after you'd left for the day and damaged herself and had to wait all night.

None of us expect you to do that job of full time carer, but you still seem to be doing it, just that you get to home but then worry all night.

misskool

silvercar wrote: »

Techy NP, Netbook or ipad2?

Depends on what you want to do with it.

general surfing/messing around/normal day to day ipad

actually working, probably netbook. (the keyboard would make a big difference I think)

PasturesNew

The old's already been in and booked out of a home.... and I have no powers of persuasion.... so my current situation is to not do knee-jerk reactions, but to enable the old to realise for themselves that re-visiting the previously discarded ideas are a good idea. It has to come from the old. The old needs to start saying what they DO want, so far all we've ever had is what they DON'T want.

All I can do is play the waiting game. Not had a call today .... yet. It'd be like a day off if I weren't permanently glued to the phone expecting it to ring...

Davesnave

The other point I'd make, from experience, is that the move to a care home should not be left too late.

That's where I went wrong with my Dad; things were really hairy by the time I'd fixed him up with somewhere. He was less able to make the change because of his reduced capabilities. Even so, three weeks after the move, he was showing positive signs of adapting. He even smiled and joked on the last occasion we saw there; something he hadn't done for so long it gave us a shock.

Had he not died from a heart attack, my Dad might well have enjoyed a bit of a mental renaissance, just by having more company. Either way, I was a very lucky boy not to have him die alone and leave me a legacy of guilt.

PasturesNew

At least, re legacy of guilt, I'd be third in line for any of that. I've done my bit and more....

lostinrates

PasturesNew wrote: »

The old's already been in and booked out of a home.... and I have no powers of persuasion

... what about siblings? I think you have to be really kind but VERY VERY frank with Parent, and if not you sibling might feel able. Its not just YOU its all of your skills that are needed.

so my current situation is to not do knee-jerk reactions, but to enable the old to realise for themselves that re-visiting the previously discarded ideas are a good idea. It has to come from the old. The old needs to start saying what they DO want, so far all we've ever had is what they DON'T want.

Absolutely old has to make the decisions. But atm you are enabling her decisions at cost to your self. this would all be fine if you were willing to be a carer long term, but its going to be harder on you both the longer this goes on....unless its just harder on you because she gets her way of staying there and you taking care.

.

All I can do is play the waiting game. Not had a call today .... yet. It'd be like a day off if I weren't permanently glued to the phone expecting it to ring...

Actually I think you can do more...by doing a little less. I think you can tell Old you want to get on with your life although you love her, that you can't stay doing as much as often and that she needs to think about that. You can stop rushing over when the phone rings and arrange more days off with sibling taking half the week/alkternate weeks/alternate days.....and then each of you doing LESS for Old than she wants just meeting absolute needs when you can't spare time to jump through hoops of want.

I don't think any of that is easy, but it doesn't sound like now is easy either.

PasturesNew

Siblings can't help more than they do. One's on the other side of the country and already delayed two booked holidays and been here a week a month. "local" one works full-time, being out of the house 13 hours/day and then having to do stuff like get their car fixed and do household stuff/shopping/coooking etc and they live alone so everything's down to them (including keeping their job so they can continue to pay their mortgage). For the "local" sibling to "pop over" is 1.5 hours' round trip even if they didn't knock on the door. So it's not practical ... and you can add to that that they don't really give much of a t055 and it's not worth kicking up a fuss else I'll just have more stress.

The "local" one makes the noises that they're able to help and wants to know what jobs need doing - the thing is the jobs aren't things that are on a list and are easily done away from the old's house and everybody has a different idea of what a job is and its priorities, so I say the main job is "to be there" and all I get is a raft of excuses why a job can't be done.... so it's easier for me just to not bother insisting.

Also, my experience of others "helping" is to give me more work to do/stuff to sort out. It's the sort of help that ends up with me doing stuff and nobody actually taking whole jobs off me.

PasturesNew

So far I've moved out .... which was a major step in making the old realise what it's like to live alone.... thing is the very next day they decided they couldn't walk (which seems backed up by medical inspection, so now I don't think they're making it up) due to arthritis/swollen joints.

That's what makes it hard to make decisions - as soon as a decision is made, something big changes and it creates a problem as you can't undo the decision just made. Trying to minimise decisions/changes at the moment because of the ability for decisions/actions to come back and bite you