Getting carers through the door

[Livveywills]

I bit the bullet a few weeks ago and contacted social services to get some help with caring for mum. My post a few weeks ago described my pretty desperate situation, caring for her with 5 kids 2 of those with special needs and a full time job.

Mum is of course resistant to outside care, she agreed to me getting people that she knew so we've organised direct payment. Now every person I find willing to work is wrong in her mind. I'm worried that when care starts she's not going to let them in or us going to take it out on me more as I'm a terrible person for not moving her in with us or giving up work.

No matter how many times a day I go in or what I do it is never enough, I find myself thinking if she's so miserable I might as well give up fighting to keep her in her own home and let her go into a care home.

There are days like today when I feel close to hating my mum. I again took time iff if work to go with her to get a bra as all I've heard for about two weeks is that they don't fit , firstly she tells me she's unhappy because no one ever bothers with her or spends any time with her. Then we get to the shop and she's like oh my bra is fine now and proceeds to find fault with every bra I suggest, in worried that putting in carers I'm subjecting them to a terrible time if they can get in the door. And if she's nice to them I know I'll be in for the worst tirade for daring to bring people in.

I just don't want to live like this anymore, I feel my little girls are losing their childhood in all this

 

[Lindy50]

Hi Livveywills

My situation is different to yours in that I have retired and my children are adult, but gosh, I know that feeling of my life, and my family's, being totally swallowed up by mum's needs. Mum can't help it, of course, but it's true all the same.

And I too struggled to get mum to accept carers at home. I remember her saying, "I simply cannot believe that you, of all people would do this to me" ....In the end, I simply insisted, and blamed it on the doctor. ( Dr X says you are getting dehydrated / are unsteady on your feet/ need some TLC, whatever). I told her it was temporary, until she was better, and I started with a very small amount of help. Even then, I cut out a few visits after a couple of weeks, which gave her some choice and a feeling of control. As she has gradually needed more help, I have added more visits, slowly but surely. We are now 18 months down the line, and she varies between saying 'the carers are lovely' and being totally unaware that they come in at all.....

It can be so hard to get care started! But do it you must, your mum needs it. She won't resent you for it, though she might kick up sometimes. And the carers will be used to "getting a foot in the door". Above all, your little girls need your time and energy.

I hope it goes well for you

Lindy xx

 

[Sooty2]

Hi,
We were and still are in a similar situation, we have had to tell my MIL that the care staff are "our friends" and we are having to pay for these without her knowledge as she would refuse point blank to have them if she knew, for one, it cost for them, and two they were care staff, she has apparently no issues with her memory, and does not need a baby sitting service for old people! I sympathise with you, and I too find it equally frustrating alongside the constant allegations of theft, and the screaming and shouting down the phone because she wants her dishwasher back, the brand new one she bought in Lincoln, where she hasn't lived I might add for 35 years, and apart form the pretty vile notes she has written about me and my husband (her son) threatening to involve the police and the rest, it just appears endless sometimes! Keep plugging away, it isn't easy, and its not as easy as trying to convince yourself its just "the illness", I find myself so agitated sometimes and plainly angry! Good luck, chin up.

 

[skaface]

I worry about that with my mum too - she has a habit of double locking the doors and leaving the key on the inside of the porch door (so you can't get in even with a key).

She has a keysafe, but the carers have resorted to leaving the door on the latch, which I went ballistic over (I used to tell mum off if she did it). Mine also refuses personal care and won't allow the carers to wash her feet and legs even, let alone anywhere else - the only shower she's had in months was last month when she had a bout of diarrhoea (the trail of poo was nothing to do with her, of course) and the carer frog-marched her into the bathroom for a shower, she wasn't one of the usual ones though, if she refuses personal care, they won't be assertive. I do her feet and legs at least once a week - she has fungal nail infections in her toenails and I have medicated lacquer to paint on them.

I don't have any other dependents than my mum, but even I find it wearing - I'm always on tenterhooks waiting for the phone to ring - the carers' office rings me at least once a week with over-exaggerated issues ("she was found sitting in dried faeces" - I go round and it's not faeces, it's where she's spilled chocolate ice cream on the floor and she wasn't sitting in it!).

I also paid for mum's carers without her knowledge, though she now needs a care home.

I've also had the accusations, from telling lies to her GP about her when I first plucked up the courage to mention my concerns, and also the next-door neighbour was doing everything from shinning up to her roof to interfere with her television aerial, to prowling round the house and garden at night, via interfering with her mail and going to prison for it. She also told me that the woman next door had committed suicide so I had to laugh when this woman belted up to us in Sainsbury's to say hello and Happy Christmas one year - of course this was glossed over when I called her on it.

My cousin was also accused of interfering with her television, until I turned off the auto standby on her Freesat box, though how he was supposed to interfere with her television in Margate, from Dover about 25 miles away, she didn't care to explain.