After being found unconscious in the care home having obviously pulled out her catheter which she hated, my mum was admitted to hospital. After several days of high dose antibiotics and other medication, we have seen no improvement so in line with her wishes, they’ve stopped medication. She’s totally unresponsive, not drinking or eating. Who knows how long it will be. After telling me she wanted to die, she is fighting to stay. I feel unbelievably sad and guilty and wondering what I could have done differently. I miss her so much already and she’s still here but gone at the same time. This is so hard.
But just remember that hearing is the last sense to go so make sure that you leave nothing left unsaid with your mum. She loves you and knows that you love her too and that you're doing right by her, so rest in that knowledge.
God bless you.
Guilt requires causation. It requires that you cure age and failure and illness and pain. Can you do that, but refuse to do it because you enjoy seeing others suffer.
Can you yet see from what I am saying that guilt is here OUT OF THE QUESTION and has ZERO to do with this?
The words you repeat to yourself over and over in a mantra of blame are inappropriate.
You need to understand the OTHER G-word which is grief.
You feel GRIEF, not guilt, and why would you not feel grief for what happens to us at the end of our lives. To our pain and our suffering.
It is time to call in Hospice and be certain your mother is medicated out of pain and suffering; that is now your obligation, and that is all that can be done.
You say your mother is fighting to live. That isn't correct. Her BODY is fighting to live. There isn't a single living organism on the face of the earth that isn't programmed to try to survive. It has nothing whatsoever to do with conscious choice.
I am so sorry for your grief. But blaming yourself or blaming others will not change that we all do die. It is a certainty from the moment we are born. And it is often painful both physically and emotionally, and our loved ones standing helpless witness to our suffering is a crucible. I am so sorry. But it is time now to also recognize the wisdom of your mother in not wanting to prolong her own and your suffering. It is time to also recognize she has had a long life, one worthy of RESPECT and of celebration. It is time to recognize that the price of love is always made up of the grief of its loss.
I am 83. I assure you that your mother will live on within you forever. Mine is never gone from me, she is a living part of all I am every day.
I recognize your pain, and I honor your love for your mother. But please leave BLAME out of this. It has no seat at this table.
There comes a time in a very elderly persons journey when they are unable to recover from ONE more infection, their frail bodies can no longer handle it, and they pass. My father had one too many UTIs which was nobody's fault but his 91 years of life and other health conditions preventing his body from healing. I was sad and upset to see that he was terminal, but also happy he'd gotten to live a long life and I'd had him for 60 years in MY life. Hospice insured he passed peacefully and painlessly, and for that I am grateful. I'm sure mom is now hounding him about SOMETHING in heaven 😊
Go easy on yourself, my friend, none of this is your doing. God Bless you and give you corage and faith right now.
A hospital has access to way more comfort drugs than morphine, Ativan and seroquel/Haldol offered in home hospice. Take comfort in that. There will be actual nurses available on site to answer any EOL questions personally versus waiting on a call from your assigned hospice rn. Take comfort in that.
Hold her hand. Feed her ice chips should she ask and moisten her mouth with a foam lollipop if she’s beyond askimg. Play or sing old songs. Hearing is the last thing to go. The one thing I regret not telling dad until he was dead is that it was ok for him to leave and I would be joining him on a heavenly fishing trip in 25 years. I encourage You to tell your mom something like that while she is living. You will take comfort in it once she isn’t in a way I can’t having figured out to say so only to his dead body, which wasn’t the same at all. Tell her your equivalent while she is still alive, amd take comfort that you did.