I’m taking control of my life, now.

savingholmes

Sorry to hear your news. My condolences🌹

boxofpaws

Thank you for the kind words.

Apologies in advance for the really long post, I really wanted to get all this down, mainly for myself. 

Whistlestop tour of my last 12 months. 

April

Mum catches Covid from a social groups she attends. I catch Covid off her, Mr Paws catches covid off me

All plans are cancelled including visitors visiting, theatre tickets etc. 

Mum goes to my sisters so me and other local sister can have ‘a rest’, but in fact, I’m too ill anyway 

Mr Paws caught Covid of me. Gets his pay docked by £500 for missing time off work, after time off for his craniotomy and radiotherapy already. I’m still outraged. My mum kindly reimburses me, as it was as a direct result of providing care for her. 

May

Start new, weird job

I set off on long awaited holiday, a car trip round Northern Ireland. I was due to stay near to where Dad’s childhood home once stood but had to come back…

Day 3, Mum gets blue lighted to hospital, and I fly back alone from my holiday. All touch and go for a while. 

Am in England alone with Mr Paws’ stupid car (he still has mine in Northern Ireland as he doesn’t want to curtail his holiday ) which the breaks down in the middle of the road outside the hospital when I’m on the way to visit my mum. V stressful 

I finally get air conditioning fitted in my bedroom - I feel like I’ve arrived 

June

Mum in hospital. Alternate day (with one of my sisters) visits, sitting in the huge closed windows of a boiling hot ward, in gloves, apron, mask, sweating into plastic chairs. This goes on for three months, while she fights off pneumonia, has a pacemaker and a coronary stent fitted. 

What a summer. 

Remortgaged - 5 years 2.25%

July

Mum still in hospital

Sweaty visits continue 

Do escape for a 3 night city break which is welcome but too short

My tiny cat is looking not so well. We’re trying some pain relief but the vet thinks we should end the suffering. I don’t think it’s quite time yet

The low level whinging from Mr Paws about his car has reached a cacophony. I do want him to get something reliable so urge him to get the one he wants cos it seems a good deal and is sensible. £20k loan @2.9% over 42 months. The low level moaning has begun on this car at the time of writing. 

August

Mum out of hospital- then back in for a couple of days, then mostly out. 

We get a lodger who does some part time caring 

Everything is ok for a while. Mum trying ever so hard but is clearly not as strong 

September 

I manage a decent holiday - 12 days around Croatia. Lovely but eye wateringly expensive compared to last time. It’s the first time in forever that we’ve not had debt at the end of a trip though, we’d had the money ready 

October 

Tiny cat is suffering. I realise she’s trying to tell me. From the moment of realisation that it was Time - it was all done within an hour. Rang the vets, took her in, and she was gone. I couldn’t let her be in pain, but it was shocking. I was heart broken, still am. Started looking for another cat immediately, to fill the enormous hole made by her tiny self

November. 

Adopt a beautiful cat. Do all the careful introductions, but she still attacks my lovely old boy after 7 weeks. I rehomed her in December, through the shelter but to someone I know. I still miss her. She hated other cats but was such a character - I’d really fallen for her in those few weeks. She has a lovely home now though and I get regular updates 

December 

Mum goes back into hospital. More of the same really. Seems milder than before and it’s just a 4 week stint. We visited on Christmas Day - she’d slept through Christmas dinner and they didn’t keep her any, so she just got an egg sandwich. She seemed pleased with it, but that turned out to be her last Christmas dinner. 

January

Mum out of hospital in the first week of Jan. Seems well.

We are given a more definite prognosis. 2 years, roughly. My sister and I start to make plans to put her in a home as she needed more care than we could give 

I adopt a kitten

My new weird job appraisal is good. They think I’m good. I wonder if I’m starting to like it

February 

Job starts to implode…then…

Mum goes back into hospital. She’s on a different ward this time. The care isn’t as good. Also, it’s the time I of the nurses’ strike. The care staff put the patients in nappies so they don’t have to get them to the loo, then leave them in dirty nappies. The nurse doesn’t have any information if I get to see one. 

And she’s suddenly discharged…

We think she’s really not well when she gets home, but she gets no better. After 3 days of wondering how on earth we will manage to look after her, we call her GP, who asks us to call an ambulance. They’re there in minutes, and in A&E I am almost immediately told it’s grave. 

She’s in A&E for 24 hours, before going to the local hospice for her final ‘days’. She actually dies within 6 hours of arriving. 

March April May

Who knows? My job is insane, I love my kitten, I miss my mum 

enthusiasticsaver

Sorry to hear about your mum and all the other stuff you have had to cope with. Enjoy your kitten. 

savingholmes

That's such a lot. Sorry you have had such a rough time.

Suffolk_lass

How awful for you. I am relieved to see you back. I hope you are all better from your own illness (it takes a while, doesn't it?!)

I had a picture of my Dad on the side wall of my bedroom for several years after he died, so that when I awoke each morning, there was his lovely happy face, in healthy happy days before the deterioration and his death. I also had my cat's picture as the wallpaper on my phone for ages.

Don't let work suck up the time and space you need for grief, it doesn't get rid of it. You need to give yourself that time to sit and grieve (cry, in my case) quietly, in front of treasured memories of happier times, maybe on your own. Your Mr Paws inhabits his own planet, hence the "on your own", maybe. My place was on the side of my bed.

Sending you my sincere sympathy and best wishes x

EssexHebridean

Oh Paws I'm so sorry for you having had to go through such a horrendous time - the stuff with your Mum, and the lack of care in the later stages in particular rings SO many bells about what we went through with my Dad - I'm still boiling with rage over it a year later and I'm not sure that will ever dissipate - there is NEVER any place for careless neglect of anyone, regardless of whether that person is old, not going to recover or whatever. the NHS can indeed be wonderful, but it can also be appallingly, diabolically poor, and let people down horrifically - and sadly it's very "unfashionable" to ever dare to point this out!  I'm glad for your Mum (and you!) that she did get discharged to the hospice where I have no doubt her last hours were spent being reassured by you and them that she was loved, and that she mattered.  

Sending love, and hugs, and a strong desire to see kitten pics... 

boxofpaws

Thank you all for the lovely and thoughtful messages. 

@suffolklass, your words have rung around in my head numerous times as they are so accurate. He does live on his own planet, someone acknowledging that has somehow made it a bit easier. He behaved quite bizarrely when my mum died. He kept having toys (toy cars) delivered to the house, literally in the same week as her death and for several weeks after, It was so weird. I didn't have the energy to tell him to behave like a normal human being, even temporarily while my world realigned itself. I was able to laugh about it months later on reflection though and told him what a buffoon he is. 

@EssexHebridean -I have gone though lots of emotions. I have had to stop thinking about it now. I did raise a complaint to the hospital. The response was nothing short of outrageous. One day I might post about it but not yet, trying to move on. I hope it has started to dissipate for you.

boxofpaws

I thought it might be good to post an update on the finances, even though it is all a bit secondary at the moment

We had to replace our flat roof in the summer. There were holes in it and water pouring in, it was not optional

I worked out that the consolidation part of the mortgage would be paid August 23. And it was, especially with the bit of overpayment we had done. Outstanding is £126k
We now have that plus the car loan (£11.5k outstanding)  and the roof loan (£4.2k outstanding) 

The consolidation means we are at £126 + £11.5 + 4.2 = £141k
Without it, it would be something like £133 + 4.5k + £4.2k = £141k

Meh potato potahto. 

I have shares that exceed the debt, so I guess we are debt neutral. 

Should be something to celebrate apart from I CAN'T STOP SPENDING MONEY

I feel like I have put my life on hold for so many years, from not having any money because my husband has children and had debts and is a little feckless to being a carer and tied to a life with no fun. So now, I am saying yes to everything. I am instigating things. I am being really sociable, rekindling old friendships and trying to experience different things in life.

it might be that I have loosened the purse strings because there is an inheritance coming my way soon but I do need to get this back in control. I do not plan to use the inheritance to settle the debts, this needs to be something we work at together so I think a shift in focus is needed. 

Help me get back into those MSE ways

EssexHebridean

Spending diary. Write it all down, and more than that, when you are considering spending money, remind yourself that if you spend it, you have to write it down... 

A lot of us on here have found the joys of a personal spends budget in the past little while - do you do that already? If not it might be worth thinking about, and if you do, but find yourself spending over it, maybe it's not increased with inflation so genuinely does need to be higher? (Or maybe you're just frittering - easy done!) 

There is a huge amount to be said for saying yes - but it does have to be within the bounds of what can be afforded without compromising what we want to do elsewhere. Having cleared the original mortgage in 2016 we've had the past few years of being able to cheerfully say yes to extra trips to the Hebrides, holidays with pals and various other things. Now we've taken a new mortgage for the new house, we're having to remind ourselves that this sort of stuff now needs discussion, and budgeting, and there might be times when we have to say "nope, sorry, can't do that" too. It's a learning curve for sure - but I'm also finding that the careful working through of finances means we value the things we DO say yes to all the more. 

savingholmes

Well done for clearing the consolidation loan. Best of luck with your other plans