So sorry things are so dire @Ethne Alba . I hope the move to the new home happens very soon.
Today we're off to look at a couple of places for my mother in law, and tomorrow at another place for my mother. We know how to live exciting lives!
So sorry things are so dire @Ethne Alba . I hope the move to the new home happens very soon.
Today we're off to look at a couple of places for my mother in law, and tomorrow at another place for my mother. We know how to live exciting lives!
That's what Master S said when I told him we'd been digging out the compost bins!
Seriously, praying for good results for all.
(In the Saturday Times, it said that average care home costs were about £600 per week - this is certainly not my experience and the Dowager was definitely not in an expensive part of the world!)
This has been going on far too long @Ethne Alba . I hope someone either there or at your end can get things sorted and moving.
We went to look at two homes with my MiL in mind today. First home wouldn't let us in to view, so we had to peer through the windows while chatting to the administrator. It all looked a bit tired and shabby, which wouldn't be important if the care was good, but obviously we couldn't see any care to judge. My husband was put off because all the pots in their courtyard, (which overlooked the carpark) were filled with plastic flowers. Second home had a lovely garden and we were given a thorough tour. That didn't feel quite right either, but my sister in law is due to visit them both later in the week, so it'll be interested to get her view point.
Tomorrow we're going to visit another place for my mum. It sounds like a half-way house between the two we saw today. Annoying if we think it would suit MiL as it is in totally the wrong place for the other siblings to visit.
... In the Saturday Times, it said that average care home costs were about £600 per week ...
Average where - Cheapsville, Arizona?
My dad, who died three years ago, was paying (I think) about £1,000 a week for the home run by Orkney Islands Council, and I wouldn't expect Orkney to be the most expensive part of the country.
My mother's care home fees are getting on for three times that amount @The Intrepid Mrs S , but she is in a posh bit of London. However all of the homes we've contacted regarding my mother and my mother in law charge more than £600.00 a week, and they are all in pretty ordinary parts of the East Midlands. To say £600.00 is the average suggests there are some homes charging much less. I'd love to know where they are, and what they are like.
How does anyone afford this? Because the lower number is basically my whole take-home pay. If I ever had to put Mr. Lamb in a home, I'd be living in my car.
By selling the aged parent's house and using that money to fund their care, until that runs out, then battling with social services for support, which is only available for some situations. It's why it's all such a hot issue that politicians are dodging here, particularly when their decisions around Covid19 killed so many people in care homes.
There is means tested financial support available provided by/through local authorities. It does take account of the need for housing for a spouse who is not going into care.
There are various perceived issues including whether the local authority provision is adequate, and the fact that a lone older person needing care may expend all their assets on care rather than, as they might have hoped, leaving it to their offspring.
My sister-in-law lived with my father-in-law. Over a decade ago we realised that if my father-in-law had to go into care the provisions that allow a non institutionalised spouse to remain in the home wouldn't protect her. There was protection for an adult child who had given up their own home to move back in with a parent to provide care, but no guaranteed protection for an adult child who had never left home. At that point my father-in-law transferred the flat to her. In the event my father-in-law didn't require care as his health failed quite rapidly at the end.
My husband was fully supportive of his sister getting the flat, which effectively disinherited him. The impact on us, had his sister found herself homeless, and the value of the flat gone in care fees, could have been financially crippling.
I don't know if anything has changed since, re adult children who live with a parent.
Social Services (at least in England) can disregard the house on a voluntary basis for a someone that has always could their parent's house home. I don't know how easy it is to get it, and I doubt it's something they advertise.
The social care system is totally shot. I don't begrudge my mother's money going in making sure she is well looked after in her old age, it's her money after all, but the situation can be dire for people with out their own money. The current government knows that to fix it is going to mean not just more money, but a whole rethink of the care system, and that's something that they really don't want to do. Which reminds me I wrote to my MP (a minister in that sorry crew), but have ignored his reply so far. I ought to go and read it.
Social Services (at least in England) can disregard the house on a voluntary basis for a someone that has always could their parent's house home. I don't know how easy it is to get it, and I doubt it's something they advertise.
That was the situation here, but the words "can" and "voluntary" didn't reassure us. We wouldn't have known whether or not my sister-in-law would have been allowed the house until we were in the situation of my father-in-law going into care, at which point it would have been a huge additional stress.
Hence the transfer of the title into her name. The concern about the impact on us, had we found ourselves remortgaging our own home in our fifties to help out a homeless sister-in-law meant that my husband was relieved to be "disinherited."
Hope it goes as well as it can @Ethne Alba .
I read the email from my MP and it was all about how committed this government is to sorting out social care and how all round generally brilliant they are. I'm considering my reply.
Today I've phoned up the home I think will be the best fit for mum and started the ball rolling on a move.
I've just had a long phone call with my mother. I'll be quite honest here - one of the ways I manage my mental health is by trying not to speak to her so often, because there's only so many people's heads I can manage at once. Selfish? Probably, but I can't handle her head as well as mine. And today she was low enough to admit that she was feeling really low, and got tearful on the phone. That's really bad.
Anyway, my brother who lives in the same house (I won't say with her) is not talking to her at all at the moment, exacerbated by the fact that it's harvest and he works on a farm, so he's out all hours and on the rare occasions when he does say anything he just snaps. Frankly, he's a bit (quite a big bit) of an arsehole. He also has two loud dogs (who leave crap everywhere that he cleans up with great reluctance). He went away just leaving them in kennels before harvest and Mum loved the peace and quiet and could actually do things with her dog without being barked at, shouted at etc. Despite being the man of the house now, he does bugger all to help, which is pretty off given that he's living rent free. She can't manage the big lawnmower or start the strimmer, so stuff just gets left undone. Ten days or so ago they had an apocalyptic hailstorm (I saw a clip from a few hundred yards away on the BBC website, I use the right word), and it has ripped all her trees and flowers to pieces, smashed glass in the greenhouse, damaged the conservatory... So the place is looking like a bombsite. If she hadn't just spent a lot of money on landscaping the front garden, I honestly think she'd have decided to sell up by now, and just fuck him. TBH, I don't think my sister or I would argue with that.
On top of all that the village are apparently expecting her, as the person living next to it, to lead the fight against a large (by the size of the village) development in the next field, that everyone is worried about flooding from. She can't cope with what she's got at home, never mind that, and her computer is doing something bizarre where it sends any emails she sends out in batches every three days - no chance of sorting that out without being there as it's the Windows 8.1 app, and she's an appalling technophobe, trying to sort it out over the phone would make pulling teeth look like light relief.
Listen? Ask if she could sell the current strimmer and mower and replace them with things she can handle? (That may be impossible with the size of the property - but the electric versions aren't as hard to start or manoeuvre as diesel versions.) Ask if there's anyone local can help with the reglazing? Suggest she moves anyway because she doesn't want to be either next to and/or blamed for the neighbouring development and stuff the brother?
It's not her responsibility to organise the protest about the development - it's going to be pretty impossible anyway as the Government has set targets for redevelopment that are big and if the councils don't comply with providing the current huge numbers of housing required but a certain date that number goes up. I suspect the overdevelopment next door to me is to comply with this development requirement.
I was so pleased that Dad ended up where he did. His was an emergency placement, but it was far better for him that the place where Mum had died and where my eldest brother is now.
Brilliant news @Ethne Alba . Hope it all goes smoothly. How are you getting your aged p to the new place?
I went down to London to see mum and be involved in the assessment for a transfer ( I hope) to a home near where I now live.
Three hours to get there only for her to tell me to go away. She’d just had a shower and that puts her out.
Things did improve and she later told me I was beautiful, Fingers crossed the new home will take her. The manager at the current place was very helpful with various things,. What he couldn’t do was provide transport to get her there, hence wondering how you’re managing it EA.
@Sarasa , we were given a local contact ….that turned fully booked with NHS contracts for the foreseeable. So quite literally used a search engine! Contacted the lot. Trawled through the reviews online . Asked tough questions .
Then requested and took up references.
They do this sort of thing all the time plus lots of repatriation work too. Had AP been a youngster we would have looked at a flight. But That amount of transferring and the noise….!
Some private firms are more local, the one we chose has a base up here too
Thanks @Ethne Alba , I've started to look as the care home here said they'll take mum, so will need to find a way to get her here. I'm pleased as it is a trek to get down to see her, and she seems so out of it now I'm surprised she is still going.
Thing is, these transfer ambulances do it All The Time. I found our one very helpful indeed (you have dm) .
They liaise with the homes.
And the homes liaise with each other too.
A friend of mine told us at a zoom meeting about coming back home to find her 93 year old father missing. He was gone and his walker was gone, but his shorts were still on the ground. He was found safe and sound. He'd just gone for a walk.
The next adventure didn't have as good a result. He rode his tricycle out to a stable to watch the horses. (A short ride around here.) When he got off the trike, he stepped into some gravel, fell, and broke a hip. He decided on surgery to try to fix it (he was completely able to make the decision) but it didn't end well. He had a coronary during the surgery and went home to hospice care, where he died a couple of days later.
His daughter has asked me to sing at his service -- I Left My Heart in San Francisco, which he heard nearly every day, even humming along when he couldn't speak. And we'll sing How Great Thou Art -- they're Swedish. We'll add Amazing Grace and maybe another.
Please remember Gunnar for a long life, well lived. And my friend P.
This was never one of AP’s life goals, never something to be considered as an option, totally caught us All out, but hey- we are all making the best of a bad job. Especially AP.
On reflection: we had over five years with AP in what we now know was a Most Superb residential home. I mean , I m not generally a massive fan of care homes but I would have lived there!
It was utterly fabulous.
The interim placement, less so. But then again if you suddenly have an elderly frail person admitted in a hurry, the chances are that things might go wrong. And they did.
What have we as a family learned from this?
That end of life / when we can’t cope / relating to power of attorney etc etc paperwork …should be sorted fully…. belt and braced. And MUCH earlier than anyone really thinks it needs to happen.
Had this happened A Whole Lot Earlier than anyone would have thought it needed to…. We would not have been in the position that we were in. Which was social services involvement and that held everything up.
It has got to the point now where I am waking up in full on panic-mode. Which isn’t great.
But I do know that once this nightmare season has passed and AP is up here and settled, then my mornings will return to their usual gentle start.
Prayers for all with their APs!
And
Sort that paperwork!
Agree about the paperwork. I'm so glad we got Lasting Power of Attorney sorted for my mum before things really took a dive. My husband's family have had to go down the Deputyship route and that is much more of a faff.
I have a date for moving my mum up here, and transport sorted. I'm having slightly cold feet as to whether the new home can cope with mum. Her behaviour isn't anything out of the ordinary for someone with advanced dementia, but I imagine she'll be a bit unsettled at first.
I think care homes are like schools There are some truly appauling ones and some amazing ones. In between you just need to find the home that matches your loved ones needs. My husband and his siblings have found a home for their mum. He's the only one not to have seen it, but he's happy to go with their judgement. It looks lovely, but I think it might be lovely because it cherry picks its residents. MiL will probably be OK, as she is much more calm than my mother, but I imagine if she is 'difficult' in any way she'll be asked to leave.
I'm another one who will encourage everyone to get their APs' paperwork in order. I'm so glad that I made the appointment with our attorney about four years ago when Mom and Dad were much more coherent. Mine was also done and a copy made for Daughter-Unit.
I've encouraged D-U and her dear hubby to get theirs taken care of with the idea that it can be changed later as life circumstances change. It's a relief to have plans in place!
I have a meeting scheduled Friday with the Wellness Director at my APs' assisted living place. We have to update their care plan, as Mom is needing more hands on care and supervision. It's been a bit of a mess recently, but there are new people on staff, so they seem to be taking me more seriously than previous staff.
My dear friend F posted a request for prayer last night - her mother, who has been a Right Royal Pain ever since she was widowed a few years ago, is refusing to go into respite care. She tells F and her sister that she loves them very much and will do anything for them...
...except what they are asking her to do!
This prompted long discussions between us and our visitor, during the course of which it was established that all our mothers, and that of her deceased husband, had suffered mental health issues during their lives. This I found fascinating (if extremely sad).
Prayers for all dealing with APs and the care system, but especially those with intransigent mothers!
My mother has never had a diagnosed mental health issue, but her anxiety has always been sky-high, she has always had difficulty sleeping, and she claims not to have have experienced a completely happy day since 1955. (I was born in 1964, so by the same token, I have never experienced a completely happy mother.)
But the messages Mum got growing up about her role in life as a woman - no-one could take those on board and have good mental health!
Mrs Z was taken back to hospital last night. Male Sibling Zappa who happened to be in her neck of the woods has cheerily assured us all is well, not a prob, would granddaughter mind picking her up as he's a bit busy?
Compared to so much that I see on this thread it probably isn't a prob[lem], but her frequent flier points with the ambulance service would be impressive if such a thing existed, and now once more she'll be spitting chips at everyone who dared to interfere.
Sorry to hear about Mrs Z @zappa. Is your mother now in sheltered accommodation or is she still at home? I guess there is going to come a time when the hospital refuse to discharge her without a comprehensive care package in place.
At the moment she's still - well at the moment she's in hospital, but - formally still at home. I am rushing north on Monday to be present at a case conference, above all trying to navigate that path between warring siblings ... I think I'll be arguing that she should be sent home again, and Intervention and imposed dumping in a home of the Health Board's choice will kill her. I think I can get the siblings to agree that re-empowering her to make (or at least think she's made) her own decision is critical.
Damn damn damn. And I hate being the gutless one who each sibling thinks is backing them because I agree with the last person I spoke to.
[You should should see me at synod: yes of course x should be compulsory. Hell no, obviously x is the worst thing since Eve slipped Adam a Granny Smith.]
Comments
Today we're off to look at a couple of places for my mother in law, and tomorrow at another place for my mother. We know how to live exciting lives!
That's what Master S said when I told him we'd been digging out the compost bins!
Seriously, praying for good results for all.
(In the Saturday Times, it said that average care home costs were about £600 per week - this is certainly not my experience and the Dowager was definitely not in an expensive part of the world!)
As a family, we are wrung out.
AP is being stoical.
We went to look at two homes with my MiL in mind today. First home wouldn't let us in to view, so we had to peer through the windows while chatting to the administrator. It all looked a bit tired and shabby, which wouldn't be important if the care was good, but obviously we couldn't see any care to judge. My husband was put off because all the pots in their courtyard, (which overlooked the carpark) were filled with plastic flowers. Second home had a lovely garden and we were given a thorough tour. That didn't feel quite right either, but my sister in law is due to visit them both later in the week, so it'll be interested to get her view point.
Tomorrow we're going to visit another place for my mum. It sounds like a half-way house between the two we saw today. Annoying if we think it would suit MiL as it is in totally the wrong place for the other siblings to visit.
My dad, who died three years ago, was paying (I think) about £1,000 a week for the home run by Orkney Islands Council, and I wouldn't expect Orkney to be the most expensive part of the country.
There are various perceived issues including whether the local authority provision is adequate, and the fact that a lone older person needing care may expend all their assets on care rather than, as they might have hoped, leaving it to their offspring.
This long read (link) sets out the situation.
My husband was fully supportive of his sister getting the flat, which effectively disinherited him. The impact on us, had his sister found herself homeless, and the value of the flat gone in care fees, could have been financially crippling.
I don't know if anything has changed since, re adult children who live with a parent.
The social care system is totally shot. I don't begrudge my mother's money going in making sure she is well looked after in her old age, it's her money after all, but the situation can be dire for people with out their own money. The current government knows that to fix it is going to mean not just more money, but a whole rethink of the care system, and that's something that they really don't want to do. Which reminds me I wrote to my MP (a minister in that sorry crew), but have ignored his reply so far. I ought to go and read it.
That was the situation here, but the words "can" and "voluntary" didn't reassure us. We wouldn't have known whether or not my sister-in-law would have been allowed the house until we were in the situation of my father-in-law going into care, at which point it would have been a huge additional stress.
Hence the transfer of the title into her name. The concern about the impact on us, had we found ourselves remortgaging our own home in our fifties to help out a homeless sister-in-law meant that my husband was relieved to be "disinherited."
@Sarasa you’ ve been v helpful, thank you. (+ you have a dm)
I read the email from my MP and it was all about how committed this government is to sorting out social care and how all round generally brilliant they are. I'm considering my reply.
Today I've phoned up the home I think will be the best fit for mum and started the ball rolling on a move.
I'll hedge my bets with prayers and fingers crossed
Anyway, my brother who lives in the same house (I won't say with her) is not talking to her at all at the moment, exacerbated by the fact that it's harvest and he works on a farm, so he's out all hours and on the rare occasions when he does say anything he just snaps. Frankly, he's a bit (quite a big bit) of an arsehole. He also has two loud dogs (who leave crap everywhere that he cleans up with great reluctance). He went away just leaving them in kennels before harvest and Mum loved the peace and quiet and could actually do things with her dog without being barked at, shouted at etc. Despite being the man of the house now, he does bugger all to help, which is pretty off given that he's living rent free. She can't manage the big lawnmower or start the strimmer, so stuff just gets left undone. Ten days or so ago they had an apocalyptic hailstorm (I saw a clip from a few hundred yards away on the BBC website, I use the right word), and it has ripped all her trees and flowers to pieces, smashed glass in the greenhouse, damaged the conservatory... So the place is looking like a bombsite. If she hadn't just spent a lot of money on landscaping the front garden, I honestly think she'd have decided to sell up by now, and just fuck him. TBH, I don't think my sister or I would argue with that.
On top of all that the village are apparently expecting her, as the person living next to it, to lead the fight against a large (by the size of the village) development in the next field, that everyone is worried about flooding from. She can't cope with what she's got at home, never mind that, and her computer is doing something bizarre where it sends any emails she sends out in batches every three days - no chance of sorting that out without being there as it's the Windows 8.1 app, and she's an appalling technophobe, trying to sort it out over the phone would make pulling teeth look like light relief.
What the fuck am I meant to do?
It's not her responsibility to organise the protest about the development - it's going to be pretty impossible anyway as the Government has set targets for redevelopment that are big and if the councils don't comply with providing the current huge numbers of housing required but a certain date that number goes up. I suspect the overdevelopment next door to me is to comply with this development requirement.
Which just goes to show that if standards are set, encouragement given and a close eye is kept on matters then Everyone is happy!
Staff are very much relishing this new opportunity to shine.
AP regained a bit of life and sparkle; their room looks very welcoming and efficient.
The entire place looks heaps better.
Family are prepared to climb off the ceiling
Phew
AP will still move, but in an orderly manner and no longer looking like a sack of potatoes.
Thank you for listening to me as I ranted.
Chocolate has magical results.
I was so pleased that Dad ended up where he did. His was an emergency placement, but it was far better for him that the place where Mum had died and where my eldest brother is now.
Unfortunately it's now closed.
I went down to London to see mum and be involved in the assessment for a transfer ( I hope) to a home near where I now live.
Three hours to get there only for her to tell me to go away. She’d just had a shower and that puts her out.
Things did improve and she later told me I was beautiful, Fingers crossed the new home will take her. The manager at the current place was very helpful with various things,. What he couldn’t do was provide transport to get her there, hence wondering how you’re managing it EA.
Then requested and took up references.
They do this sort of thing all the time plus lots of repatriation work too. Had AP been a youngster we would have looked at a flight. But That amount of transferring and the noise….!
Some private firms are more local, the one we chose has a base up here too
They liaise with the homes.
And the homes liaise with each other too.
When it works well, it Really does work well.
The next adventure didn't have as good a result. He rode his tricycle out to a stable to watch the horses. (A short ride around here.) When he got off the trike, he stepped into some gravel, fell, and broke a hip. He decided on surgery to try to fix it (he was completely able to make the decision) but it didn't end well. He had a coronary during the surgery and went home to hospice care, where he died a couple of days later.
His daughter has asked me to sing at his service -- I Left My Heart in San Francisco, which he heard nearly every day, even humming along when he couldn't speak. And we'll sing How Great Thou Art -- they're Swedish. We'll add Amazing Grace and maybe another.
Please remember Gunnar for a long life, well lived. And my friend P.
So……This Wednesday my AP arrives in Scotland!
God Willing ….Covid allowing ….Etc Etc
This was never one of AP’s life goals, never something to be considered as an option, totally caught us All out, but hey- we are all making the best of a bad job. Especially AP.
On reflection: we had over five years with AP in what we now know was a Most Superb residential home. I mean , I m not generally a massive fan of care homes but I would have lived there!
It was utterly fabulous.
The interim placement, less so. But then again if you suddenly have an elderly frail person admitted in a hurry, the chances are that things might go wrong. And they did.
What have we as a family learned from this?
That end of life / when we can’t cope / relating to power of attorney etc etc paperwork …should be sorted fully…. belt and braced. And MUCH earlier than anyone really thinks it needs to happen.
Had this happened A Whole Lot Earlier than anyone would have thought it needed to…. We would not have been in the position that we were in. Which was social services involvement and that held everything up.
It has got to the point now where I am waking up in full on panic-mode. Which isn’t great.
But I do know that once this nightmare season has passed and AP is up here and settled, then my mornings will return to their usual gentle start.
Prayers for all with their APs!
And
Sort that paperwork!
I have a date for moving my mum up here, and transport sorted. I'm having slightly cold feet as to whether the new home can cope with mum. Her behaviour isn't anything out of the ordinary for someone with advanced dementia, but I imagine she'll be a bit unsettled at first.
I think care homes are like schools There are some truly appauling ones and some amazing ones. In between you just need to find the home that matches your loved ones needs. My husband and his siblings have found a home for their mum. He's the only one not to have seen it, but he's happy to go with their judgement. It looks lovely, but I think it might be lovely because it cherry picks its residents. MiL will probably be OK, as she is much more calm than my mother, but I imagine if she is 'difficult' in any way she'll be asked to leave.
I've encouraged D-U and her dear hubby to get theirs taken care of with the idea that it can be changed later as life circumstances change. It's a relief to have plans in place!
I have a meeting scheduled Friday with the Wellness Director at my APs' assisted living place. We have to update their care plan, as Mom is needing more hands on care and supervision. It's been a bit of a mess recently, but there are new people on staff, so they seem to be taking me more seriously than previous staff.
...except what they are asking her to do!
This prompted long discussions between us and our visitor, during the course of which it was established that all our mothers, and that of her deceased husband, had suffered mental health issues during their lives. This I found fascinating (if extremely sad).
Prayers for all dealing with APs and the care system, but especially those with intransigent mothers!
But the messages Mum got growing up about her role in life as a woman - no-one could take those on board and have good mental health!
Compared to so much that I see on this thread it probably isn't a prob[lem], but her frequent flier points with the ambulance service would be impressive if such a thing existed, and now once more she'll be spitting chips at everyone who dared to interfere.
Damn damn damn. And I hate being the gutless one who each sibling thinks is backing them because I agree with the last person I spoke to.
[You should should see me at synod: yes of course x should be compulsory. Hell no, obviously x is the worst thing since Eve slipped Adam a Granny Smith.]