Is Mom getting ready to die?
We lost my dad last Christmas so 89 year old Mom lives alone now. She is alone a lot because she's shy. She likes her family, but has no interest in social activites or hobbies. We kids are her caregivers.
She is quite healty but weighs only 85 pounds. She is a very small person, but still, that is malnourished according to her doctor. We've tried to get her to eat more but she just can't. Congnitively she seems to be declining a bit, but I notice she worries about things, and that directly affects her cognitive functioning.
The other day, as I was leaving, she quite matter of factly said, "I think I'm just wearing out." Then she said, "I know it's natural." I questioned her a bit, and the only thing she mentioned was that she doesn't see as well as my sister and I. Then I found out the next day she told my sister the same thing, she's wearing out.
Yesterday she was having trouble and thought she was losing her mind (dementia). I asked some questions and found that she thinks that her kids are going to move away and leave her alone. My sister and I are her primary caregivers. We are both thinking of moving eventually, but not anytime soon, but Mommy worries and thinks it's going to happen very soon, and maybe that's why she is more confused sometimes. I notice the difference when she is worried.
Last night when I was leaving, she mentioned she wanted to call her 90 year old cousin, and other people "while she still can." This morning she added a little more detail, saying "before she gets too dopey."
Do you think based on these things that maybe she knows on some level she won't be around too much longer? Or is she just getting worse cognitively?
Now that I write it down, it sounds like she's more afraid of getting dementia, but when she told me she's wearing out, it made me feel like she's getting ready to die.
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Use these words: Mom is LIVING with cancer, Mom is LIVING with a terminal illness, instead of Mom is dying.
Please do not take offense, none is intended here. Try it, to help yourself.
Can you and your sister reassure her that you're not moving anytime soon and that you'll always be there to care for her? And that even if her eyesight goes, she'll be fine and well cared for? If you have a way to ease her general anxiety, it sounds like it would do a lot for her mental state. I think it's very hard on some elders to be dependent on others and to feel the change in themselves and the loss of their abilities.
It may be that mom is becoming anxious BECAUSE of her cognitive decline, and not the other way around. I'm not any kind of expert, just my experience with my mom. We did not see the cognitive decline, but it affected EVERYTHING. Mom didn't eat well (she could only really figure out how to do chicken thighs and cauliflower in the crock pot). She stopped going out because of problems with fecal incontinence brought on by her confused used of laxatives and immodium. She obsessed over her eyes because of her dry eyes:she misinterpreted something something her eye Dr said about wet and dry macular degeneration. In short, she had no more reasoning ability and panicked over everything. When she was seen by a neurologist for a workup, it transpired that she'd had a stroke we didn't know about. By this time, we'd gotten her into an Independent Living facility and on appropriate antianxiety meds. We reassured her all the time, but it didn't really help for very long.
You might want to pursue investigating mom's cognitive and/or emotional state. Mom saw a Geriatric Psychiatrist due to the anxiety and it was that doc who recommended further testing of mom's cognition. It was a real "aha" moment for me when I saw the test results. Best of luck to you, and let us know how this is going.
The staff at these places, when they are run well, know how to encourage folks to participate.
Thanks for your input. Yeah, we keep reassuring her that nobody's going anywhere and we would never leave her alone, but you know how it is when someone gets something in their head, especially an older person. It's like it's stuck there and just repeats in a loop over and over. Same with her eyes. She was almost blind but we found a doctor willing to remove her cataracts, and what a difference! But she focuses more on how it's not as good as it used to be. So a lot of the same issues and we just answer the same things over again when they come up. But our response made me feel better, because I'm the same as she is, lol. I've just been worrying so much about her the last week or two that I've got myself in a state of high anxiety! Thank you for that.
So now I have another question. If she has no friends and no interests, how or what can we do to keep mommy from being alone and isolated on the days that we can't be there? Any suggestions would be much appreciated. My sister and I are thinking about assisted living for the social aspect, but I really don't know how she would adjust. She could either come out of her shell and join in, or worse, she could stay isolated in her room. She is more of a one-on-one instead of a group kinda person, but is there any way to test or tell which way she'll go before just doing it? Or any other thing that we can do so that she isn't alone all day if she stays in her home? When she is alone, she's like a little wilted flower that just needs some water and she perks right up.
However, during an MRI at the beginning of the year, it turns out that she had had a mild stroke in 2008, which no one knew about. This could have enhanced the AFib and dementia. She'd been getting crankier and crankier, but again, it wasn't fully out of character.
Babalou, your mother sounds like my MIL, not a joiner at all and not social unless it's on HER terms. Glad she found fun activities with her friend.
My husband has been caretaking in stages. First, he would be over with his mom in the evening, making sure she had dinner. Then, last September, he started working from her house and spending most of the evening there as well. In March of this year, he started living at his mom's full-time. I'm at our house, which is just over a mile away, to relieve him when he needs to go to work, one day a week. Otherwise, he can work from home. At the moment, I'm not working and spend more time with him and her so it takes some of the burdens off of him.
She has anxiety that we're going to leave her, but then she'll turn around and want us to leave immediately. There's no rhyme or reason to it. My husband says that my presence make her a little happier and I know that it helps keep him calm so I try to be here as much as I can while I'm not working.
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