So bizarre !

jugglingmum

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Jan 5, 2014
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Chester
Will be a sad day in my dept at work tomorrow, although colleague hadn't been Liverpool based for a good few years (7 or 8 maybe) so many in other depts will not know her.

I will be late in as have to drop daughter at work experience placement. She will look odd in work clothes tomorrow morning. She is currently staging her own rebellion against recent happenings by listening to serious French radio non stop, although as well as politics she has also learnt about the football away kit rules (she has no interest in football in English).
 

Amy in the US

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Feb 28, 2015
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USA
Checking in and not sure how this will work from my phone. We arrived safely yesterday. The puppy was the best traveler of all the non-adults! FIL has an appointment tomorrow where we will find out the CT scan results and if he's going to continue chemo. It's been busy here and we will need another day or two to get a routine but FIL is clearly happy to see his grandkids and daughter and that makes all this worthwhile.

JM, I'm so sorry to hear about your friend.

Ann, hope all goes as well as possible tomorrow.

No slight meant to anyone else; just very tired. Thanks for your good wishes.
 

Ann Mac

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Oct 17, 2013
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Morning all,

Amy, good to hear from you, glad you all got to your in-laws safely. So pleased that its made your Fil so happy to have you all there. Have fingers crossed that the results from the CT scan are as good as possible under the circumstances. Take care of youself, hun xxxx

Maureen, checked Mil's leg again on Saturday morning when I went - swelling gone, so am pretty sure that it was just the arthritis, thank goodness. Complete change from the night before, she and several others were doing a 'picture' quiz, with one of the staff - large photo's of people famous from the 50's to the 80's were being held up, showing the famous person as they were then, and the patients were namimg them. All were enjoying it, was surprised that some were joining in when previously I'd barely heard them speak at all. Strange how the mind works though - none could name a young Marlon Brando, Ronnie Barker or Grace Kelly - but most knew Princess Diana instantly! Anyway, Mil was pleased to see me, but so engrossed in the quiz that there was no other conversation, no confabulations at all and she was quite happy when I left after just 40 minutes.

The meds issue is frustrating, Slugsta - when living independently, Mil had medication to take twice a day, and we got to the stage where she missed it all the time. The Social worker and the home care manager were able to persuade her to have one home care visit a day, in the morning, to try and make sure she took her tablets then, but that did nothing to ensure she took the nightime ones - she needed 2 home care visits a day, just for the medication issues, but as she was adamant that she 'never missed' her tablets (even when you showed her the still full blister pack) and as she bitterly resented having been 'forced' (as she saw it) to have home care when she didn't want/need it anyway, the two vists that were really needed were never going to happen :( We tried at one point phoning her to remind her to take her tablets at the right time, but often she wouldn't answer the phone (especially in the evening) and she could get so angry at us reminding her, because no matter how tactful we tried to be, she felt she was being treated like a child. And even if she was OK about the phone call, unless she took the meds straight away, within 10 minutes chances are she would forget that we had even phoned, so they still wouldn't have been taken. I honestly can't think of a way round it, other than your Mumdefinitely sounds a lot less contrary than Mil, so might she accept daily (or twice daily if needed) calls from home care, just to oversee her meds?

JM, if there was transport directly to and from the other Welsh Medium school, we would jump at it - but public transport, that detours into several small villages along the way, and with a fair walk at the school end of it, just isn't practical. Maybe a car share/lift share could be set up eventually - but no guarantee. If she does change schools, I think it would ahve to be to an English language school - and I am seriously worried about the disadvantage that would put her at, especially in the middle of her exam years :( The school are supposed to be contacting me today - we'll see what they have to say. Meanwhile, dau is off to an agricultural college today, on an overnight stay, to do a 2 day course in animal care. She is really looking forward to it and I am just relieved that she will be away from both the bullies and the teachers involved in the latest nonsence, if only for a short time.

Phoning the hospital at 10a.m. today, to check that all is in place for us to collect Mil with the minimum of fuss - don't want to be hanging around for hours waiting for meds or paperwork, and having her get wound up and upset. OH was supposed to be in work today, but we had to cut the zoo visit short as he felt ill - he didn't get much sleep, but seems a lot better this morning, and I must admit, I am glad he is going to be home when Mil arrives. I'm all mixed up about how I feel about her coming back - apprehensive, but hoping it will be OK, about sums it up!

Will update you all when I can - take care everyone xxx
 

Spamar

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Oct 5, 2013
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Suffolk
Good luck, Ann, hope all goes as well as possible!

JM, I didn't even know there were rules about away kits! But I have very little interest in football these day ( though used to watch Plymouth Argyle as a kid!). I'm the despair of my (male) friends, though I did say I might watch the final if England get there! Though I think I'm more likely to watch if Wales get there!
Sorry about your friend, it's hard, isn't it? I keep having thoughts about my own mortality when I think of my friend. Still, she's beating the odds at the moment, she's had it 8 months, the last person I know who had pancreatic cancer died within 4 months.

Have a good day, everyone. I have a hair appt this am and gp this afternoon! Appt took so long to materialise, I've nearly forgotten what I wanted it for!
 

LadyA

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Oct 19, 2009
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Ireland
Ann, I know it would scupper your chances of getting a job if MIL goes into full time care, but have you thought about home ed for your daughter, even for a while? There are Home Education groups that would help with info I'm sure.
 

angelface

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Oct 8, 2011
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london
Hoping the day is calm and turns out as well as possible.

However this turns out,you will never need to think "wish I could have done more".You have already done everything you could.

Wishing you strength for the day.
 

Slugsta

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Aug 25, 2015
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South coast of England
Afternoon all,

Amy, I'm glad you arrived safely and that FIL was glad to see you all. I have my fingers firmly crossed that the scan results will be favourable.

Spamar, hope you will be happy with your hair when it is done.

(((JM))), I well remember when one of our younger GP's died suddenly and what the atmosphere was like at work :(

Ann, I'm glad OH will be there today and hope that everything goes as well as possible for as long as possible.

I did contact Adult Services about care visits for Mum several weeks ago. Got a call on the 10th day to say that they are too busy to even assess her at the moment so don't really know where to go from there :(

It has been bright and dry here today and temps in 20s. Would anyone like to lay odds on how long this will last?? :rolleyes:
 

Onlyme

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Apr 5, 2010
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UK
I hope everything is going as well as possible. Please don't forget to pull the RIP cord in case of emergency!
 

Rageddy Anne

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Feb 21, 2013
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Cotswolds
Been skimming to catch up, so please forgive me for not listing every one who is going through difficult times. Just sending huge hugs, and not a few tears.

JM, so sorry about your friend, so very sad.

Ann, I can't believe you are still standing after all you and your family are going through. And it's hard to believe that after so long, MIL is still as frantic with her anxieties as she was ages ago. And the poor soul finds herself suffering and utterly confused in such a chaotic environment.

Wishing you massive strength for her return. And a solution to your poor daughter's difficulties. What a tower of strength you are having to be....sending all the hugs I can muster..

On a lighter note, I love the idea of damsels and dragons......:)
 

jugglingmum

Registered User
Jan 5, 2014
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Chester
Ann - hope all has gone well, and you have all survived the day, esp with OH being on 12 hour shift.

Amy - glad you survived the journey, we've always said our dog is better behaved then our children.

Slugsta, maybe you need to chase SS again, using the words vulnerable adult, nothing to lose and he who shouts loudest....

RA - reading your thread fingers crossed for respite

Son fell asleep in school today, think Scout camp has a lot to answer for :)
 

Amy in the US

Registered User
Feb 28, 2015
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USA
Thanks again for all the kind messages. Anxious for Ann's update. Hope everyone is as well as possible and apologies for no time to properly read the thread

Went to the oncology appointment today with FIL and it was sort of equivocal. The tumor is stable- hasn't shrunk, but hasn't grown. There has been very very slight improvement in the lymph nodes. My FIL is going to think about it, but is likely to try 2 more chemo cycles and then another CT scan. His bloodwork is good, at least. The chemo will be while family is here, and he also needs a procedure (stent replacement) the week after next. This should be interesting.

We have been here just over 48 hours so are only now starting to settle into a routine. Am doing as much as I can on the cooking/cleaning/general helping front, without losing my mind. The grandkids are able to help (except the 3 year old!) so it's not awful, just a lot to do and my MIL is having a lot of pain from arthritis but can be resistant to help, if you know what I mean.

I'm tired so heading to bed. Thanks for listening!
 

lizzybean

Registered User
Feb 3, 2014
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Lancashire
I did contact Adult Services about care visits for Mum several weeks ago. Got a call on the 10th day to say that they are too busy to even assess her at the moment so don't really know where to go from there :(


Hi Slugsta, check out my thread "persistence pays off" regarding the above. As Kevinl says put everything in writing.
 

Ann Mac

Registered User
Oct 17, 2013
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Hi everyone,

Up early - a lot on my mind .

. . . Please don't forget to pull the RIP cord in case of emergency!

Rip cord got pulled pretty rapidly, Lemony :(

OH didn't go into work - he had been struck with what seemed to be a migraine at the zoo the day before, it had made him sick a couple of times, he hadn't had much sleep and was definitely not feeling 100%. He felt OK enough to come with me to pick up Mil - just really tired and washed out. Have to admit, very glad he was home - I felt it would make it easier for Mil and us.

Picked Mil up at 11. She was so happy when she found she was 'going home'. We wanted to make the whole thing a 'nice' event for her, thinking that if she was in a good mood and chilled to start with it would help, so once we got all her stuff together and got her out, we took her to a quiet little pub restaurant, that she has been to before, for a fish and chip lunch. All very low key, but Mil plus a favourite meal we figured would get us off to a good start. Confabulations were coming thick and fast, but she was quite happy burbling on with us just going along with her. Whilst eating, there was a brief moment or two - once when she tried to add salt for the 3rd time and OH gently suggested that she had enough, and once when I took her to the loo and reminded her to wash her hands - when there was a 'flash' of the old anger on her face. Took me aback a bit - haven't seen that 'glare' aimed at me for several weeks now - but she quickly seemed to revert to the chilled state, so all good.

Home for 1pm, and as advised gave her the prn dose when we got in. Slightly confused by the meds - I found iron tablets amongst the pills, and not one but two new inhalers. No one had mentioned iron tablets to us, so I phoned to check, only to be told that her blood results from the last 'several weeks' had again showed she was anemic - however, the doctor I spoke to reassured me that the type of tablet MIl had wouldn't cause us the same old problems with constipation she had had before, so OK, mental note made to stock up on the green veg and buy some liver for her. Got the case and everything stashed out of sight quickly and made her a nice cuppa, OH found an old film for her to watch and we sat with her. She was OK-ish, but not really settling. Up and down to the loo, about half a dozen times in the first half hour, but it seemed more because she couldn't sit still than because she need the toilet, IYKWIM. And asking several times when was her "appointment at the hospital/doctors/that place you said I was going to, Ann?" . And at just after 3pm - "Have I missed that bus home, Ann?". Slight sinking feeling - she had had the prn, and the hospital had said that any sundowning hadn't been starting till around 5-ish or later. However, she seemed quite easily reassured, no kick off and she settled back to watch the end of the film, then OH found one of the game shows she likes.

About an hour later, OH's head was starting to ache again, he felt it was probably down to the lack of sleep, so he headed off to bed for an hour or so as Mil seemed perhaps a little unsettled, but certainly not agitated. Meanwhile, having been promised 'contact' from the school, I had been checking emails every so often and at about 4-ish one came through (finally). Not impressed with the content, I composed a reply, then forwarded both the schools mail and my response to the LEA. Took me about 25 minutes, I guess? I then went into the kitchen, to switch on the pre-prepared food I'd got ready for tea, then into the front room to tell Mil that I was cooking one of her favourites - cottage pie - and ask if she would like another cup of tea? I was all jolly and upbeat, but she quite simply turned on me.

Can't even remember how she started, just that she was clearly angry with me and was swearing like a pirate's parrot - and basically it was I had a "%*^£ing cheek" talking to her after I had spent the last two hours "battering her senseless". I was a 'cow', a 'heartless bi*ch', I'd knocked her 'all around the house' and left her 'black and blue'. She was going home, she was going to phone the police, I could just wait because she was going to get her husband to 'beat me up'. I spent a whole 2 minutes trying to calm her, did the 'validating her feelings' by saying how sorry I was that she felt like that, suggested a 'nice cup of tea', asked her would she like to go to her room and 'have a break' from me? - but no more than 2 minutes in total, because she was absolutely livid and anything I said was clearly aggrivating her more. So, I walked away, going into the dining room. But she followed me and the fury was worse than I'd seen before. I'd stuck the phone outside on the patio table, out of her sight, as I'd walked into the dining room. Glad I did, because that was the first thing she demanded. I told her I didn't know where it had been put - and for the first time ever, I actually felt sure she was going to get physical with me. She was looming over me as I sat , and her fists were clenched. I got up, dodged round her and she came at me with one fist raised, obviously intending to hit me. She's pretty frail looking now and she is only a little lady anyway, but even so, I think if she had landed a thump in the temper she was in, she would have hurt me. I legged it upstairs to OH. He spent about 15 minutes trying to calm her - not a flipping chance. I stayed in the dining room out of her way, but I could hear her. She was adamant that I had hit and beat her repeatedly, and at one point she was obviously trying to show OH where I'd hit her - only, of course, there wasn't a mark on her (well, the usual bruises up her arms, but none of them 'new'). She was telling OH to phone his Dad, at first - OH tried the 'Remember what happened to Dad' routine, but no chance. Then very quickly, something in the way she was talking (or rather shouting) at him changed and I suspected that once again he was (in her head) her husband. For weeks, she has been mostly convinced that he is her brother, occasionally her son - but we haven't heard the 'husband' delusion since she has been in hospital.

And OH decided 'enough'. He phoned the hospital and they told him to bring her straight back. I didn't argue - all I could think was 'what if she behaved like that towards our daughter?'. He asked me to make sure she had everything she needed in her case, and he continued to try and talk her down. No luck and it was clear that he couldn't risk driving her there solo, she was way too volatile. So, he managed to get her into the back seat, he climbed in with her and I drove. All the way there, she repeatedly told him that I'd hit her, though the tale now grew to include the additional detail of how she had thumped me back. She also asked him was he going to 'break up with her', because she had hit me? He kept reminding her that he was her son, but she although she agreed when he said it, she couldn't hold on to that idea and it was obvious that once again, I was the 'other woman' in her eyes.

We got to the hospital, and in a complete about turn, Mil greeted the male staff nurse with a huge smile and proceeded to tell him how she had seen his 'double' on the telly. He handed her quickly over to other staff, Mil sat herself in the communal area as though she had never left and we were taken to the 'quiet room' for a chat with the staff nurse. I explained what had happened and OH added that she was 'really vicious' in her attitude towards me and that it was clear that she couldn'tbe talked down. I was a mess, but the first thing the staff nurse did was tell us both that he 'took his hat off to us' because of the way we had kept fighting for and kept trying with Mil. He said he couldn't have coped with her at all in a 'home environment'. He felt that she was particularly difficult, because although she is severely impaired now, she is still somehow able to be mostly articulate and present incredibly well for some of the time at least, and that makes her really hard to deal with, it presents very difficult communication problems. She was also one of the 'biggest characters' he said he had met and he was just stunned by her ability to fixate on something and resist any type of distraction. She had frustrated several staff, including him, with her stubborness - and he just didn't think it was possible, no matter what OH and I did or how we tried, to deal with her in a 'normal' home environment. It helped to hear that.

We stopped to talk to Mil for a short while as we were leaving. I don't think she even rememebred being at our house, and I don't think she remembered how angry she had been at me, either. She did however, ask OH when she was going 'home'? I could have cried.

I more than half expected this last chance to end up with Mil having to go into residential care at some point quite soon. I was hoping it would work - but not expecting it to, IYKWIM. So I was sort of prepared for this - though I did think that we would last longer than just a few hours. I'm sad, and I wish it could be different - but I also know that no way could I or we have coped with that level of agitation and aggression. I've always said that physical violence, whether aimed at me or anyone else in the house was my 'line in the sand'. I know that it was probably the upset of the environment change that sparked her behaviour yesterday - but I also know that there are likely to be, in the future, any number of other factors that could provoke a similar level of distress and anger in her. I also believe that I am a sort of catalyst for behaviour like that, because I don't think she is able to get over the resentment that she feels at my having to help her. She doesn't see why she needs my help, it angers her when she KNOWS she is perfectly competent and capable, she doesn't understand it. There is no way to have her living at home without me helping her though - even bringing in home care to tackle some of her care wouldn't help, because for the rest of the time it would still be me. And that's all mixed in with even more resentment because I think being in a domestic environment sparks the delusion that its her home and that she is still a housewife and with OH being still so familiar to her, he must therefore be her husband - and I must be the interloper. It must be something like that, because out of the home, when she has been in respite, when we are out and about, whilse she is in the hospital, that delusion doesn't happen - its always just in the house.

OH is - it seems - completely accepting of the decision. Like me, he wishes it had worked, but he clearly didn't expect it to, either - and he is very clear in his head that we simply couldn't have done any more. He also said that he feels like he has expected more than enough from me over the last 2 years and 10 months that she has lived with us, never mind all the time we also supported her in her own home before that, and its now at the point where it would be wrong to expect any of us to cope with even more - especially me.

There will be a few 'meetings' over the next few days, to start the process of finding her a residential place. Last week, Mil's CPN made a point of letting us know that the home where DC is held had a bed available. I'll be speaking to them today, to see if that is still the case. I'd like to get her settled quickly, so I'm hoping that they have. Mils consultant (who was only yet another locum, remember) has been replaced by someone completely new again, we found out yesterday, so I'm also hoping that whoever the new chap is, he doesn't decide to start messing with her meds or changing the goal posts - I was very glad that we have everything in writing when we were given that news, I can tell you!

I'm so sad that this didn't work, but at the moment although I am questioning if I could have done something different yesterday, I am also sure that even if I had, sooner or later, it would have come to this anyway.

I'll update once I have a better idea of whats going on though I do expect the next few days to be pretty chaotic and stressful, TBH. I still have the school problems to tackle, as well, and I can't let them slip either :(

Take care everyone xxxx