Nice people thread part 8 - worth the wait

lostinrates

Found the pills, sort of.

DH came home, called the pharmacy and asked them when they last delivered. Its their fault not mine.

They are bringing me some NOW.

The problem is really back with the doctors who keep sending my repeat back to somewhere else in their own surgery but the managed pharmacy should be chasing this up. That's surely what 'managed' means, and part of why you have something managed if part of your condition is memory impairment?

Edit. I am actually seriously relieved to know its not me going loopy!

neverdespairgirl

Something the contraceptive pills have, but most don't, is days of the week on them. Which is very useful for the idiot-minded such as me who need to check if they've taken Wednesday's or not.

neverdespairgirl

PasturesNew wrote: »

There would be a technology-based solution, e.g. wifi ipad/webcam and pill dispenser where somebody centrally calls them and releases the pill and watches them take it - but the installation and location of that would cause issues, but it's a thought for the future.

You can get time-release set pill containers, can't you? Which spring open at the right time, and can be loaded up with a few days' worth.

lostinrates

PasturesNew wrote: »

The trouble with the feeble-minded is they make irrational decisions and forget things. Ultimately, the only way to know if an old person took a pill/the right pill at the right time is to stand over them and see it for yourself. There would be a technology-based solution, e.g. wifi ipad/webcam and pill dispenser where somebody centrally calls them and releases the pill and watches them take it - but the installation and location of that would cause issues, but it's a thought for the future.

Yep, that's just how it is for us feeble minded


Honestly, my short term memory is pants.

I had a white board until we moved and I have been trying to cope without it since. I forget things like 'brush teeth' or 'take pills' so sometimes I do them twice if I am not careful, or forget to at all. Sme things are easier...minty breath? Then I have probably brushed my teeth. Pills.....its harder to tell.

LydiaJ

GDB2222 wrote: »

Sometimes, Lydia, one doesn't want to be brought down to earth.

Sorry

lostinrates wrote: »

Found the pills, sort of.

DH came home, called the pharmacy and asked them when they last delivered. Its their fault not mine.

They are bringing me some NOW.

The problem is really back with the doctors who keep sending my repeat back to somewhere else in their own surgery but the managed pharmacy should be chasing this up. That's surely what 'managed' means, and part of why you have something managed if part of your condition is memory impairment?

Edit. I am actually seriously relieved to know its not me going loopy!

Glad it's getting sorted out

neverdespairgirl wrote: »

Something the contraceptive pills have, but most don't, is days of the week on them. Which is very useful for the idiot-minded such as me who need to check if they've taken Wednesday's or not.

That's because everyone who takes contraceptive pills takes the same dose of one a day. Most other pills may be taken at different doses by different patients, so it would be difficult to produce them with the days already printed on.

When I went through a phase of forgetting something I was meant to take once a day, I found the best thing to do was to write the days of the week (well, their initials, anyway) onto the blister pack with a marker pen as soon as the pack arrived, to give me the same "check if I've taken today's" thing that I used to have with contraceptive pills.

Another strategy at times has been to put the blister pack on top of my toothbrush (if toothbrush lying down) or in front of it (if toothbrush standing up in a holder) so that I can't brush my teeth without being reminded of the tablets. That's a bit like what I used to do as a graduate student when it was terribly important that I remember to turn off the hydrogen flow before leaving the lab each evening. I used to put my bike keys inside the apparatus cabinet, and not let myself take them out until I had turned off the hydrogen. I couldn't forget the bike keys or I'd get no further than the bike shed! That way I not only turned it off, but I remembered that I had turned it off and didn't worry about it later in the evening or in the middle of the night.

My dad has one of these. He finds it helpful. But then he's not loopy - just a bit disorganised - so can be trusted to use it correctly without supervision.

GDB2222

neverdespairgirl wrote: »

You can get time-release set pill containers, can't you? Which spring open at the right time, and can be loaded up with a few days' worth.

My experience with mother-in-law with one of these is that:

1. It made a noise, so she took out the batteries.
2. We set it to silent mode, but she still took out the batteries.
3. Then she broke the lid, because it was in the way.
4. So, we ended up with a large, round, expensive and inconvenient pill box.

Basically, when the old biddies want to be awkward, they'll be awkward.

LydiaJ

People with dementia really don't need a piece of technology to make them take the correct pills at the correct time - there is no substitute for a real live person without dementia to keep tabs on them. The problem is that so many dementia patients are so resistant to losing their independence in this way. I was lucky when my mum got dementia, because my dad was still (a) alive, (b) married to her, and (c) in possession of all his wits, so he could supervise her stuff and she was happy with that. What will happen if he gets it at some point in the future is a lot more troubling. Not going to cross that bridge unless and until we get to it, though.

PasturesNew

GDB2222 wrote: »

My experience with mother-in-law with one of these is that:

1. It made a noise, so she took out the batteries.
2. We set it to silent mode, but she still took out the batteries.
3. Then she broke the lid, because it was in the way.
4. So, we ended up with a large, round, expensive and inconvenient pill box.

Basically, when the old biddies want to be awkward, they'll be awkward.

Yep. This, to me, is "par for the course". They start inventing their own bizarre solutions and instead of asking for help, the bizarre solutions are the way they do things.... and you turn up and try to explain, but it doesn't go in..... and then they find something else bizarre to do.....

And this is why care homes are great. 24/7 with all the danger removed. Stuff just happens, they just have to get up, natter, eat, natter, drink lots of tea, eat lots of cake .... and repeat.

neverdespairgirl

PasturesNew wrote: »

What crisis?

Sorry about that... I just found a page I missed

There was lots happening which could easily be termed as "Crisis" in the period 1540 - 1560.

1. Succession angst.

Henry VIII had at last had a son by Jane Seymour, but in 1540, he was still a child, still at risk, and that was obvious to Henry, because he'd been a second son himself until his elder brother died at the age of about 16. So he wanted another son, and married the (Protestant) Anne of Cleves, as arranged by his chief minister, Thomas Cromwell. Unfortunately, she didn't do it for him, and the marriage ended after only a few months (she agreed to the annullment in a hurry; I doubt he appealed to her much either, and even if she thought he was sex-on-very-fat-legs, she had only to look at his previous wives to see the wisdom of agreeing with Henry). That was in 1540. He then married the poor cow, Katherine Howard, who was very young - date of birth not exactly known, but she was almost certainly still in her teens when he had her executed for adultery, and he was an out-of-condition, obese, nasty piece of work nearing 50 years old. She didn't have a child either, before he cut her head off. Nor did his 6th and last wife, Catherine Parr, who managed, just, to keep her head, although it was a close-run thing.

So when Henry died, he had only one legitimate child, according to his own lights, the young Edward VII. And Edward was a minor, so needed a Regent. "Woe to thee oh land, when the King is a child!" as had been said in the previous century during the minority of King Henry VI. Edward had two regents, one of whom got his own head cut off, as did one of Jane Seymour's brothers, who had married the widowed Catherine Parr after Henry's death.

After EDward died, came the succession crisis with Lady Jane Grey being proclaimed Queen for 9 days, then Mary taking over.

2. The problem of women leaders.

Queen Mary was the first undisputed Queen of England. THere had been Matilda, Lady of the English, who fought a long and inconclusive civil war with King Stephen - both were grandsons of William the COnqueror, and Matilda was the only surviving legitimate child of Henry I, so he left the throne to her, but Stephen then bagged it. Described as the time "When Christ and All his Saints Slept", it only ended after 20 years or so, when it was agreed that King Stephen would be succeeded by Matilda's son, Henry II. So women monarches caused a lot of anxiety.

Queen Mary married her first cousin once removed, King Philip of Spain, which caused a lot of unrest. He was Spanish, and Catholic, and dragged England into a war against the French which resulted in the loss of England's last French territory, Calais "When I die, you shall find Calais engraved on my heart" as Mary said.

Then Mary had no children - she was in her late 30s when she married Philip. He was quite a lot younger than her, and only spent two periods of time in England. SHe thought she was pregnant at least twice, to the point of preparing for a birth and retreating into confinement, but she wasn't pregnant and had no children. So the successor was likely to be Elizabeth, her disliked presumed-protestant half-sister, for whose mother Anne Boleyn her own mother had been cast off, and Mary herself declared illegitimate in favour of Elizabeth as heir.

There was periodic angst, too, about who Elizabeth would marry, once she was Queen. She turned down Philip, who wanted to hang on to England and marry his sister-in-law. There was concern that any domestic husband would cause trouble as he would (obviously) be in control, and want to promote his family and friends, and concerns that any foreign husband would take over the country on behalf of his homeland.

3. Religious trouble.

1540 - 1560 saw much of the pain, uncertainty and disputes of the Reformation. Henry VIII was, in essence, a reformed Catholic. Edward VI was a Protestant, quite clearly so. Mary I took the Church back to Rome. Elizabeth essentially calmed things down in the Elizabethan Church Settlement of 1558, which contained enough ambiguity in doctrine to allow most people to conform, but not all of them.

The period of 1540 - 1560 saw many trials and executions for heresy, including lots of bishops of different denominations. "Bloody Mary" is one reminder of this, but she wasn't the only one to execute heretics.

4. Economic woes

The mid 16th century saw very extensive economic problems. There was high inflation, which was not understood well at the time. There was an increase in what was seen as the undeserving poor, or "sturdy beggars", as it was put at the time. There were several serious harvest failures, which caused wide-spread hunger and trouble.

5. Revolts and uprisings

There were several in this period. There was the Pilgrimmage of Grace, a wide-spread uprising against hte break with Rome and disolution of the monasteries, in 1536. It also demonstrated opposition to Henry, in that although Anne Boleyn hadn't been popular, her execution only 3 years after marrying her bothered a lot of people and damaged Henry's reputation at home, as well as abroad.

There was the Prayer Book uprising in 1549, against the imposition by Edward VI's government of the Book of Common Prayer, in Cornwall, Devon and Dorset. The same year, there was Kett's Rebellion in East Anglia, against land being enclosed for sheep.

After Edward died, there was the usurption of power by Lady Jane Grey (a puppet for her father-in-law, Northumberland) and then the successful actions of Mary to claim the Crown back.

Mary suffered a number of revolts, too - Wyatt's Rebellion, a year after she came to the throne, taking against her proposed marriage to Philip.

6. Social upheaval

Massive social change - the dissolution of the monasteries left a big social gap, as they had fed the poor, housed the elderly, treated the unwell. There was a big gap in provision.

Society was changing too - people rose to power who wouldn't have done decades or centuries earlier, people who weren't from the landed families.

Enclosure of common land for sheep pushed people off the land.

GDB2222

PasturesNew wrote: »

Loony . . . http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2379012/Tiny-beach-hut-water-electricity-toilet-sells-180-000-price-bedroom-house-Liverpool.html

That's my house budget!

Reality of those is it's all about being seen to own one..... they pay a fortune annually; there's no road access, I think they can take the car once a year maybe to offload, but then it's a half mile walk from a dark public car park to the end of nowhere.... in the daytime there's a noddy train. Everybody's crowding round/looking during the day, so you're constantly peered at .... and there's nothing there. Nothing.
And the transfer fees were £15k in 2011.

Just checked: you're allowed to park for 20 minutes for offloading only, so long as you don't block the road for the noddy train or others.

I think that the reality of these is the greater-fool theory. First, though, the sort of people who buy these like the fact that " it's a half mile walk from a dark public car park to the end of nowhere.... in the daytime there's a noddy train." So, whereas you wouldn't want one, there are people who do. I would. But not at that price. I'd much prefer no noddy train, just the half-mile walk.

The people who buy presumably have cash to spend, but I very much doubt that they think of it as money down the drain. They assume that someone else will buy it off them for what they paid. So, they reckon it's just costing them the running costs. The greater fool theory: they look at the increase in price over the last few years, and they reckon they'll make a profit when they sell.

And if daddy is working his socks off as a trader in the city, mummy brings the kids down for a month by the sea. They stay at the holiday cottage and this is just part of the package to keep them all happy whilst daddy earns his first bypass.