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Aw cool!!

Or you could get an inexpensive nightlight designed to tell children when it's bedtime or time to get up:

Great post..

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OMG Haylett. You deserve a`medal!!!

Hey Nannybus, it is so good to see you! True to my promise, I'm here to have a good old whinge and it's fantastically liberating to be indulged! I don't know about others, but I find I often frighten people who think that the Sunbeam stuff is for real, and that I'm Stepford-wife good. (Holding biblical tracts and wearing ankle socks and a beatific smile on the tube home from work in London was a great way to clear a few seats. Don't speak to the smiler..!. So the relief of hiding out here and speaking a few home truths is like a puff of fresh Beast breath!

Have read some more about your experiences with the CH and your Mum. If faith could move mountains Nannybus, I would move the Himalayas for you, if I could. Everything - the intruder, the fall, - all is a miserable scandal but the fees are exploitation of the cruellest kind. Probably circumstances are impossible, but at home agency fees can't be more than this.
Screaming with you, Nannybus.

You've done it again Haylett, made me laugh, but in an empathetic sort of way.

Scream away kid, we hear you, pity those closer to you do not though! I feel weary for you, for all the things you do.

Have many boxes of antihistamines, bought on line. No b****y good, of course, but 'croutons' hmmm ........

Oh Thanks. Yes the lamp is fixed

Family home, good sleep for me tonight...

I've fallen in love with your mother!!!

Who do you want to stick pins in, or is that not for public consumption.

Seriously though sorry if things are too tough right now. Keep writing and letting it out. xx

Hi Christin, sadly fence is still listing so I'm trying hard to ignore it! I'm so sorry about your FIL - the constant requests to go home are heart-rending. I hope it subsides soon and that he finds a kindred soul in the home. Did you manage to get the lamp fixed? Hx

Dear Bastan, always good to see you and thank you for your kind comments. Is your family back? Are you feeling better?

Afraid it has been more of a rictus type grin this last couple of weeks. When my father left Mum years ago, she made a plasticine voodoo doll of TW (That Woman) and stuck pins in it. Even though TW was truly a Slack Alice, I thought Mum's gouging and prodding was a bit too gleeful. But I could have happily stuck away these last few days. Sometimes I think carers are just too nice for their own good. xx

A real laugh out loud! x

Haylett it's fabulous how you manage to bring humour into the nightmare which is often our lives. Thank you for making me smile.
xx

Oh Haylett, I don't mean to laugh but you do have a great way with words

I hope the fence is mended and guests have been fed. And perhaps MIL might leave a tip

Hi Nannybus,

How are you? How depressing that the CH should lose your mother's dentures only a week after her admittance. Are they all put in one central sterilisation unit?! Why couldn't they be kept in your mother's room? It isn't rocket science, is it?! After all, your Mum is bed-bound so it isn't as if she were swapping dentures with another resident....Just chip, chip, chip at self-esteem and hard for you too, to witness.

Pineapple juice was recommended by the district nurse. Not sure, but I think it's because it promotes saliva, which in turn has components that eat the bacteria that cause dental decay. But it's an odd taste, pineapple if you aren't a pineapple quaffer, and Mum wasn't and isn't.

The grip thing is odd isn't it? I swear Mum wasn't so strong before. Yesterday I had Grip and Spit. Where did she pick that one up?! Of the two, I think I'll take the pain of the Grip rather than be spat at!

I have to pass this onto you, because I think you'll appreciate it: in trawling the internet for home remedies for teeth and all things various, I came across a US site, where someone had commented that her mother used to smoke dope, puffed it over Grandma who had AD - and who was miraculously restored!!

Oh yes. Suck on that, 'elf and safety!!! Hx

Hi Haylett

Learning the Thumb Grip code is like a new language and I think you do very well. I try to equate your situation with mine. Mum used to have a grip like iron. I worry that now she is in the Care Home there is nobody to interpret her wants, not that she can grip now anyway. I also do not have the tooth problem, as the Home lost her false teeth the very first week she was there. Perhaps that is a subtle ploy on the Home's part, as 16 pairs of false teeth must become a logistical nightmare.

I was interested in you mentioning pineapple juice for palliative care. What is that all about then?

this painted a brilliant picture & made me smile on a morning when I least feel like it

So thank you

Rosaliesal, thank you for passing on your experience. How horrifying. And how saddening. I have come across just one carer who is such an ardent admirer of jewellery (neither MIL nor Mum's) that pieces are frequently "gifted" and mostly retained by the carer. That's a really tricky one. I have to say that when MIL gives her jewellery to carers, the ladies have always found a way to hand it back without upsetting MIL. Though I think the inventory is a very good idea because I don't think either my husband or I really know what MIL has.

Since I started this post, the LM has now gone off sick with stress so we are no closer to a solution. I'm sure it's genuine but it's one of the most frustrating things in dealing with SS, the number of managers (not carers) who are signed off for long periods for stress. Besides, we are now told that Home Care is to be disbanded (more or less) and that care for MIL and others is to be contracted out to an outside agency under the aegis of SS. Whether we can get the camera up and running in the transitional period so it is 'fait accompli' as far as the agency/agencies are concerned, I have no idea.

I now worry much more for those poor souls who have no family able or willing to monitor the care (or lack of it) they receive.

I have a horrible feeling that things are going to get much worse in this new period of austerity.

I hate to have to remember this, or to make others worry. There are many honest and caring people who are paid to care. However, when my mother had a team of carers come to her home all her jewellery that was gold or silver disappeared, bed linen and facecloths that were new, even toilet rolls. How do I know....I made an inventory after my suspicions were aroused. One girl admitted taking the toilet rolls but denied the rest. I called the head of the care department who cheekily got huffy with me and told me I must decide whether to have their services or not and refused to even look into it all. I was so enraged that I contacted the police who told me that this type of things happens frequently and the only way would be to use a security camera. Of course you have the right to put one of these in your home but in our case I was afraid mum would forget and walk about in the nude or something like that. We also had to consider whether the innocent would be so hurt when the police planned to make impromptu visits to the carers homes to see if they had any of the stolen property. We did nothing instead. Someone took the lot and got away with it because we did not want to hurt those who were not involved and we needed help desperately as dad was paralysed and speechless for 7 years at home with poor mum. Yet they still stole from her. Sounds like somethings never change and you have a similar problem...hope you have stronger nerves than us to deal with it.

Thanks Christin and Nannybus.

Here's the follow- up: it's now month since the camera: non camera incident and our subsequent meeting with the HC line manager. Having checked with the union, the line manager agreed that we were perfectly within our/MIL rights to use a camera as a means to safeguard MIL, but requested that we hold off. The LM suggested a bed pressure mat which would sound an alarm when MIL got out of bed - but it would be at an additional cost of £ 150. Not exactly cheap, and a bit galling when we had already found our own solution at far less cost. So far, nothing has been delivered and we are no further on.

So I phoned the Care Commission to see if they could offer a suggestion. Their view was the same as yours Nannybus. The CC officer urged us to pursue it further with the LM and suggested that those who objected to the camera be deployed elsewhere. The consensus was that HC was being diverted from the main purpose, which was simply to keep MIL safe.

I doubt very much that we can dispense with the two carers who object. Apart from staff shortages in our area, there is another twist in the tale. The carer from whom MIL recoils and who made my Mum cry years ago, recently lodged a complaint against another client. She alleged (allegedly!) that the client had been rude and had shouted at her. Whereupon the line manager immediately called and threatened to withdraw HC support if the client did not behave/apologise.

Perfectly possible that the lady was rude. In the mid-stages of dementia, Mum could be acidly waspish. But no-one else complained. And the client in question is a gentle soul in her late eighties and a favourite among the other carers.

Gossip and hearsay, conspiracy theory, who knows? But it all erodes trust, the whole is frustrating - and who needs more of that???