That second paragraph sounds very familiar Sails.

I needed a good vent a few weeks back and just the space to do it in knowing there would be those in a similar position was liberating, and in relation to an ethical conundrum input was really useful: I might yet need some more. There are precious few people I care to discuss this with IRL. Considered thinking on here was considerable and generously given.

TIP:

For those who have carers assisting that are supplied through the council whether charged or not, I would make this observation: when you identify someone good, don't be shy of telling the agency that's the person you want. Have no qualms about saying you don't want someone back if they are as much use as a chocolate teapot and that if they attend they will be turned away, and you will refuse to pay for them. 

yeah the good ones are gold dust and (and there’s no way of not making this sound patronising) they are amazing people who make me deeply ashamed of my squeamishness about personal care, lack of patience, etc. etc..

It is helpful being able to be on here anonymously - subject is always a bit of a downer down the pub. 

I am dealing with family members who have done an absolute hatchet job with care of my father.  Very difficult if not impossible to unravel without falling out permanently with them.  I have had to step away for my own sanity. 

I have just been a bit short on the phone with stepmum’s dentist 😞 over a series of appts that need to be made…

Sails, make it a New Year resolution to get back up in place for when you are in London otherwise you will grow very resentful!

We've got a couple of extras line up who can help if needed and who are nearby including an extra person who's briefed on the man on the floor recovery system (it's a bit like man overboard really).  It's some of the other requests that may have resulted in items being thrown round the kitchen yesterday and doors slammed.  I'm off to London shortly for the rest of the week so will have calmed down by the time I get home and next weekend we have family visiting so he'll be on his charming best behaviour.

Puts a lot of strain on sibling relationships- even tougher for only children tho?

Think it depends on the siblings.  My dad had a brother and sister but they lived some way away so invariably my dad ended up dealing with most things with his mum because the other two would declare they were too far away.

Sorry to read the difficulties faced above. So much I recognise, in particular the uncertainty of it all - she’s dying this time, this is is… oh wait… she’s ok again just a click less able than before… and so we go on for ever. Will it be a decade? A year? A week? Tomorrow? 
And the gold dust carer, what a huge difference that makes to the load, and conversely what a huge impediment one that doesnt deliver the goods is. 

I made the schoolboy error of being closest

+1 for the uncertainty. For the past two years I have been saying I would not be surprised to get The Phone Call at any minute (which in itself is a problem, I have come to loathe the panic of hearing it ring out of hours)

Mum is now 85 and stepmum 86. 

from today you get your legal entitlement to an aggregate 5 days' unpaid carer's leave

(I have details for a pair of fooking incredible carers who frankly deserve a nice live in gig instead of trawling around by car together, being unpaid for travel time criss-crossing the ULEZ. Sisters -one is a doctor, qualified in greece - not sure why she can't practice here? Degree in social care. Other sister is an absolute angel of the foot massaging for the dying variety. If any of you lot need similar in the Surrey area, holler)

Thanks for bringing this up SS.  Helpful as I'm very new to it and at the beginning of what appears to be a very long journey (decades potentially).  Expectation amongst siblings is that I take the lead (which I'm ok with) but need to get to grips with the law and a parent with capricious temperament, characterised by unmitigated paranoia. 

Emotionally keeping it tight but resigned to him (as the person I knew) being more or less gone now.

Quips - even if the sibs agree to your taking charge now, keep everything written with them in case one of them forgets. When money becomes an issue, for eg.

I think @Muttley has had some forgetting in his family (but not about money?)

Perhaps we should have a combined sorrow drowning session in the new year.

Trouble I have is that the person I know is still very much there and it's just the body which is weak which is why he still does such a good job of winding me up.  This weekend as I was cancelling the Disney + subscription which has been unused since his birthday in August he announced he wanted Apple TV and had never asked for Disney despite us having a similar argument in the summer about him asking for Disney and Prime (which we already have but he keeps asking for it and I'm the only one who ever uses it).  The final straw was him doing his sulky thing and announcing that he doesn't ask for much.