Hi all. My grandmother has dementia and a series of other heart issues and diabetes. She is 88 and I have had to recently put her in the nursing home because her care became to great for her home care aides. I am all she has left, my mother was her only child and she passed away in 1997 and her husband of 67 years passed away last year. I am her whole world and the only person she listens or responds to is me and other family. She has had severe weight loss in the last three weeks, 15 lbs down to 94. She has to be hand fed and the food has to be pureed. The problem is she will absolutely not eat anything or take her medicine for anyone but me. She will knock it on the floor, refuse it, cuss them, sometimes becoming violent. But I can walk in the room and her mood completely changes and she's her sweet self. She will eat for me and take her medicine no problems. I live two hours away though and have had to take a lot of time off work. I feel like she will just starve to death if I'm not there and a feeding tube is not an option. Anyone else with this experience?
On the other hand as the body fails so does the appetite. I have always said if my mother refused to open her mouth to be fed I would respect that, difficult as that may be.
If your grandmother were in her right mind, she would not want you to sacrifice your life for hers. If she won't eat, that's ok. She will stop being hungry in about a day and move on to the next stage of her existence. It's the natural order of things and it's ok to move on.