Sandwich generation

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jugglingmum

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Jan 5, 2014
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As Ann Mac hasn't logged in for a while I feel uncomfortable still posting on so bizarre. Can't say I wanted my own thread but after many years of piggy backing onto Ann's I feel not right when she hasn't logged on (she is posting on fb).

@Spamar are you joining me? As we seem to be only bizarrites left.

So....

An evening carer didn't give mum her meds a week or so ago. However I found out because the GP phoned my number as it was on mum's contact details when he should have phoned the care team.

I'm not bothered in total. Mum was missing loads of tablets in 6 months before she moved into her flat (in 2014) and GP assured me that the tablets have long half lives so not a big deal from a medical perspective. But should they have contacted me to let me know rather than the GP teling me by accident.

I did speak to the care supervisor and she said that it has been raised with her management who are not happy and things are being followed up. Should I be told the outcome of this?

In total I am very happy with mum's care, and the supervisors know her needs well. She is finally getting a shower once a week, after years without due to the persistence of a certain carer who is now always rostered to do this call.

However there are lots of bits of communication I think could be better. But I don't want to rock the boat.



Whoops posted before finished writing so now edited
 
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Spamar

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Oct 5, 2013
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Hi, JM, of course I’ll join you, though I don’t have much to say these days apart from my own health, which is slowly getting better. Ability to walk a bit further would be useful. I had to give up shopping yesterday. Probably finish it Thursday, when it’ll nearly be time to go again!

I’ve missed loads of tablets in my time. I discovered that one of them was actually giving me a bad stomach instead of curing it! After hospital I have very few of the original tablets left. One of those remaining reduces my blood pressure. As I lost a lot of weight earlier this year, the BP reduced itself, so why am I still taking that tablet? I feel a visit to my gp before Christmas!
How are your Christmas plans going? Step dau put up most of my decorations, though I don’t do much these days. There’s one or two I must alter as they irritate me.
That’s the one trouble with people doing the housework. I can’t find things! Jumpers hanging on the rail with shirts instead of being folded neatly in a pile, teatowels in the wrong place, etc etc. Cutlery all muddled up. It takes me days to sort things, then I feel ungrateful, then I think that’s wrong, I should be grateful someone is coming and doing these things! Gives me empathy with those who have permanent Carers.


Welcome to ‘Sandwich Generation’ everybody!

 

nae sporran

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Oct 29, 2014
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Well done to the persistent carer , @jugglingmum. There's one or two regulars here who make sure C is looked after and gets what she needs more often than what she says she wants, just by friendly nudging. Do you have POA for your mum. I registered it 2 years ago, but only told the housing and care manger and the GP a few months ago. That should get you direct access to those decisions and the information you need. Our GP manager and the senior partner GPs have been excellent in that regard.
 

Sirena

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Feb 27, 2018
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I think your mother is in Extra Care flat @jugglingmum so it's a different situation to my mum who is in a care home. But the care home do tend to tell me when any problems arise, and how they are resolved. I think if you don't hear back, I'd probably given them another call - it isn't rocking the boat, you just want to be kept in the loop.

(I like your thread title! I'm not a sandwich myself as I don't have children... and if I did, at 62 I wouldn't still be looking after them - I hope!)
 

Jaded'n'faded

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Jan 23, 2019
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I'm an ex-sandwich I suppose, since mum died in October, but was certainly one for several years. (How many times have I said, 'For heaven's sake! If it's not one thing, it's another, and why does everyone come to me with their flippin' problems and expect me to sort it all out? Like I haven't got anything else to do. I do have a life of my own you know - or I would if I got a flippin' chance!')

@Sirena re.kids: Haven't looked after mine for some years but as they get bigger, so do their problems. (And more expensive :eek:)
 

nitram

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Apr 6, 2011
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Bury
Nice thread title.
My only way of being in the sandwich generation is to be the top slice of bread some time in the future, would I be eligible to join if (when?) this happens - this assumes I could still drive a keyboard?

I was never in the generation as the filling because all 4 of our parents died early, I was however in a lesser filling as my wife 'inherited' the care of an uncle and aunt who never married but lived together.

All in all I think the bottom slice was more troublesome.
As well as the endless scouts/girl guides and hockey/rugby which all required a taxi service there was the becoming 18 ritual of a proportion of a year group at a 6th form college.

The standard place for students (sorry for the currently Non U term, I should have said learners!) at the college to celebrate was the now closed
>>>the stables<<<
Obviously at any celebration several of the attendees were under age, the police seemed to turn a blind eye to this.

This all meant lots of dropping of followed by picking up in the early hours, I rapidly learnt to keep the car doors locked else a girl got in and asked to be taken to xxxx, on one occasion when I forgot I had to go round the car and physically extract one.

The lane to the venue split into two, a wide 'out' and a narrow 'in', minibuses were provided to the town centre, these could not drive along the 'in' so two men with radios controlled the flow sending 'in' minibuses along the 'out' lane.
All OK until you realise that some attendees are drivers and on exit are not in a state to take instructions, high-viz jackets were uncommon.
Traffic jams were common.
 

Dimpsy

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Sep 2, 2019
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Please can I join the gang - do I qualify? Oh definitely!

Mum living with us, as is eldest daughter, 40 this year - except TODAY'S THE DAY, 10/12/2019, she has moved into a flat a few roads away.
Both daughters have left home, only to return at intervals for months or years at a time, without/with boyfriends, children, pets.

OH is a model of patience, and buying a house with elastic walls helped

So, we have just come back home after dropping off the last of her boxes and it's empty and quiet with just the three of us old duffers. I feel very sad.
 

nitram

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Apr 6, 2011
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Not really qualifying however -

Having finally got rid of the bottom slice and relaxing-


Can I dump off all your stuff currently cluttering your bedroom/my loft? -

Have you got room, we haven't? -

Do you really want it?-

Yes-

I don't, when shall I drop it off?-

Etc-



 

Dimpsy

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Sep 2, 2019
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Not really qualifying however -

Having finally got rid of the bottom slice and relaxing-


Can I dump off all your stuff currently cluttering your bedroom/my loft? -

Have you got room, we haven't? -

Do you really want it?-

Yes-

I don't, when shall I drop it off?-

Etc-

Oh, we know how that one goes, daughters boxes stored indoors have gone to the new flat.
However, in the garden is a 6 X 4 shed filled floor to ceiling with the rest of 'her stuff'; it seems to have been overlooked. They never really go, do they?
 

Spamar

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Oct 5, 2013
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I’d better make it clear to those who don’t know me, being a member of the sandwich generation is not necessary to join in. I have no children of my own, inherited some step children, who are all one would want in step children. Like JM, lost my own at 15 1/2 weeks of pregnancy. I still wonder....

My second marriage was a meeting of like minds, until dementia got in the way. He had mixed dementia, Alzheimer’s and Vascular, and I managed to look after him at home until nearly the end, which was very peaceful, in July 2015.
All parents died years ago, both fathers with Alzheimer’s, my mother had a heart attack, died in the street, age 64, his mother had rheumatoid arthritis.
Now I’m a widow, not keen on this position in life.
Several of you will know I’ve just had a long session in hospital, just trying to walk properly again after kidney cancer, pneumonia and several falls. I went into hospital after a fall, and ended up with that lot! Details are on So Bizarre.
At least my mind seems to be better, if my walking isn’t!

Hope you will join in our new thread!
 

nitram

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Apr 6, 2011
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[QUOTE="Dimpsy, post: 1681111, member: 81837"]They never really go, do they?[/QUOTE]

Ultimately they do - with perseverance.

In the process beware of 'should I do a, b or, c'
Obviously c is the required response.
When it goes wrong it's your fault.
 

Dimpsy

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Sep 2, 2019
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I love bizarre but does this count or should it come under the title 'Its a Small World'?

1) Dad traced his family branch when he retired and discovered a whole treefull of relatives, one of whom lived in the small town in the 70's that OH and I now live in.
2) Even more bizarre, I have a very unusual maiden name; someone with the same surname rents a house from a relative of mine and this same someone with the unusual surname also lived in the same road that I was born into, across the other side of the country. Unusual surname but we're not related.
3) My relative (who rents out the house on t'other side of country) is a friend of a friend of the social worker who visited mum when she first moved in with us.
 

Batsue

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Nov 4, 2014
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I'm not a sandwich either as me and OH did not have children but my mum who has had Alzheimer's for 5 years lives with us and I am her sole carer as social services have so far been unable to find us respite or day care.
 

jugglingmum

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Jan 5, 2014
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When I started this thread I didn't mean to post and then abandon it but life got the better of me.

Thanks everyone for posting it was good to read your stories.

@Spamar please just post what you've been up to like we used to on so bizarre.

So after I'd posted I got a call from SW for mum's annual review. Met her at mums and asked about safeguarding. She said as next of kind I should have been informed and will follow up when she speaks to care supervisor. We went through care plan in folder which for a change was right. These have been done without any input from me for a while and at times have had glaring errors. Haven't had the energy to query as in grand scheme of things mum is very well looked after.

On the downside mum didn't have trousers on. The ones she had to hand smelt strongly of weeks and where she was sat on the bed there was a damp patch. I phoned supervisor and relayed my concerns. I'm hoping this is a one off but supervisor said mum always fully dressed on care cslls so upsetting she wasn't and wasn't bothered.

I explained via writing on a white board that it was annual review. She told sw she was happy and as it was an annual review she could go away again now with humour in her voice.

She is always telling carers to go away.

So mad busy at work and lots of running kids round. Dau raced in York at the weekend so OH went there via Sheffield. Very muddy. Son was fencing as part of NW team in Somerset. Minibus with fencing coaches so I was home alone. Got out on bike for short rides 3 days running. Been fairly poorly and will take time to rebuild my fitness.
 

Starting on a journey

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Jul 9, 2019
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I am definitely a sandwich, hopefully the nice bit in the middle. There are just the three of us at home, mum , me and my student son. We are fairly quiet but I get mum out most days and sometimes my son comes too. My daughter's descend on a regular basis when there is something tricky happening or a milk shortage so mum gets lively times too. I think it helps her to contend with this horrible disease, there's always something going on but lots of quiet times too.
 

jugglingmum

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Jan 5, 2014
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I am definitely a sandwich, hopefully the nice bit in the middle.

Not sure I manage to be the nice bit in the middle . My kids were 8 and 12 when mums crisis happened. 6 years of struggling through looking after mum sort of and struggles with kids issues have taken their toll.

Dau is coming back briefly tonight for school prize giving but has to be back in uni for labs tomorrow. She's getting the train home tonight then I'm driving her to Sheffield tomorrow collecting her stuff and she's coming home on the train on Friday. She wants to do prize giving to see everyone one last time and more to respect the school as she has school prize. Whilst a state school it is a grammar school with a good old girls network worth connecting with.

I'm postponing Xmas by a week so I can start shopping .
 

jugglingmum

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@nae sporran I do have both LPAs - not sure this would make any difference - care team have me as next of kin and contact - SW said next of kin should always be informed of safeguarding but she did say it was categorised as low level.

Spent first few mins in work on Amazon, Xmas is no longer postponed.
 

jugglingmum

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Jan 5, 2014
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Well didn't mean to leave it so long to update this thread.

Xmas and illness with 3 days in bed after new year.

Will update Xmas later but had call in work to say mum fallen and on way to hospital in ambulance. Paramedics requested I meet them there. Half an hour to next train then half an hour on train plus drive means it will take me 75 minutes to get there. Mum will be there in about 15 assuming normal traffic.

She has swollen knees and says she's in pain so hoping nothing broken.
 
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