How do I tell her she is dying?

Personally, I would NOT tell her. Being that she is 96, something else could be the cause of her passing, not the cancer. So why have her worry over this.

I agree with ff and M88. I would not tell her and it is true she may die from something else.

My mother is in late stage of vascular dementia and has been put on comfort care. There is nothing they can do for her but keep her comfortable. No one has told her this as far as I know and I think it is better they don't. Part of keeping a person comfortable near life end is attending to their psychological/emotional comfort.

Just do what you can to make the best of the time she has left. No one know how long that is.

So sorry for this news. It is so hard for her loved ones.

Send the "living with cancer" is a distinction that I read about in the CURE cancer magazine several years ago. It was as I recall a major effort to moderate the fear, anxiety and depression that was associated with cancer, and I think it was a brilliant move.

I would not tell her. As long as she doesn't know and is comfortable and feeling positive why burden her with doom and give her nothing to live for in the time she has left - and it could be a long time. If she asks, you could discuss, but chances are she will not ask. My mother did not ask, even at the end, she was fighting and didn't want to hear the words.

Seems the overwhelming majority of you think I shouldn't say anything...but here's our scenario. We have home visit nurses who are pushing/recommending hospice care. Grandma isn't a fool, she knows what hospice is. So she hears a discussion about hospice...but doesn't know the details as to why? she doesn't understand why she isn't getting stronger with her therapies (cause her body is failing her).

For those that ask about family, I'm her grand-daughter in law. Her grandson is my husband. There is no one else. she lives with us.

When visiting my father in the hospital after being diagnosed with lung cancer, the doctor said he did not tell him that he was terminal because my father did not ask. After query about how can this be right, the doctor explained that he might suspect or already know, however, not everybody wants to discuss this, may still be fighting, may not have given up hope. To have a doctor declare you terminally ill, with X months to live, can put a huge damper on your ability to keep fighting and remain hopeful. How many times have the doctors been wrong-because they have. The hope and fight left in you is, imo, what determines your quality of life!
You might want to carefully consider your own motivations-if they are anything like mine, they would be people deserve to know the truth.!
This may be the time to put mercy above the truth, and continue to visit, care for your loved one, let them know you care and are there for them, each day.

Next, ask yourself, after you tell, then what? Then, play out this scenario asking yourself, and then? Next, and then what? See where it goes, because so often, the patient will end up asking for assisted suicide, mercy killing, euthanasia way too soon. Will you be there? Will you be able to be truthful then?

So sorry you are faced with this loss and difficult time.

P.S. After removal of one lung, my father rallied, was able to perform one more job as a tree surgeon, earn a little money and give each child $300, before he died going to the E.R. with a heart condition. This time he had, this time I remember was life, and I would not have wanted to be the one taking those last three months away from him as he lie dying in a hospice bed, overmedicated, after having given up. That is why when someone has cancer, I say they are living with cncer, not dying of cancer. The difference is, you will understand maybe later, is huge.
Love, from Send

I think you have the right to speak privately with the visiting nurses as well as the agency through which they're placed, and ask them to avoid the hospice kind of conversation.

If she does ask, or you decide she has to know, her chief concern will probably be fear of a painful death. I would focus on reassuring her that you will be her advocate, and that hospice can help make her final moments peaceful.

I was thinking of the words I would use, but you must have rehearsed them in your own mind a thousand times. I think it is as you first said, at 96 she knows her life is ending soon, even without this diagnosis. Just reassure her that things will not change, that you will be there for her with the help of hospice. ((hugs))