Maybe not scared the crap out of her but rather talked reality to her when everybody else, both medics and family, has been talking BS and/or avoiding the obvious.
Getting a “firm deadline” even though it’s not strictly firm, can concentrate the mind wonderfully.
As of now the biggest contribution Mom can make to her own happiness and longevity is to eat with a purpose. So she can live with a purpose, constrained though it may be.
Good luck. This is the beginning of the window for her and the family to finish the unfinished business, both good and bad. Make the most of it.
Update: Sadly no good news, really. But we didn’t expect that, did we?
Mum had a good time on the cruise, for what it’s worth. She slept all day and all night, but did join us for dinner each night and enjoyed some music and Bingo.
The hospice doctor came to the house to examine her and thinks she has a mass on her liver.
The IvySILs were saying they needed to take her to the doctor and get tests run, and the doctor said, “What for?”
It’s not going to be good news and there’s nothing they can do about it. He also said there’s no point in forcing her to eat. This is part of the process, I guess. If she’s hungry let her eat, and if she isn’t then drop it.
She has fallen once at home while everyone was at work and managed to drag herself back to the bedroom. She now has Life Alert.
Older IvySIL was making the calls the friends and family over the weekend, letting them know Mum probably has about four months left. We’ve decided not to tell our daughter right now. She’s in the middle of some very intense AIT at Fort Sam Houston and there’s nothing she can do anyway. She needs to stay focused. She does know her grandmother is ill and hasn’t much time left, but there’s no reason to send her into grieving panic mode right now.
The weird thing is, they haven’t told Mum she has four months left. The doctor said if she asks why she’s not going to the doctor then we can talk about it. Otherwise, just let it be. I’m sure she’s got an idea she doesn’t have much time left.
She does have pain pills and has taken two so far over the last week, which tells me she’s getting a bit more uncomfortable. For us, that’s the important thing…being there for each other and making sure she’s not in pain and as comfortable as possible.
Once the liver starts to go the process is pretty quick. That’s good news in a sense, since generic failure of other systems can be a lot more debilitating for a lot longer. Living an extra six months of total misery is worse than useless. At least in my book.
Good luck. It’s past time for everybody (other than daughter in AIT) to be speaking in plain English about the realities. It isn’t easy to start that conversation, but it becomes easier and the benefits begin to flow once folks have been shown that denial won’t save the day. In fact denial makes everything worse and harder.
Mum’s on morphine every two hours now and she’s too weak to get up for an assisted shower, so the SILs are giving her sponge baths.
She told the hospice nurse the pain is an eight, but she’s telling her daughters she’s just in a little pain, probably so they don’t worry. Ivylad didn’t ask, but I would imagine she’s barely eating now.
We went to see her today. She’s barely able to speak (although she did tell my son “no” when he asked if he was blocking her view of the bedroom TV) and is refusing her medicine, even the liquid morphine (she’s refusing to open her mouth.) Ivylad will spend the week there, helping his sisters care for her. We called hospice to make sure we were doing the right things in keeping her comfortable and letting them know she wasn’t opening her mouth and that we were concerned about dehydration.
According to the nurse, her body is so busy trying to keep her lungs and heart going she doesn’t have much left for anything else. The nurse said it’s likely she doesn’t feel hungry or thirsty and not to force it on her, to use lip balm and use q-tips soaked in water to keep her mouth moist. TMI warning:
She’s not peed or moved her bowels in two days.
It’s hard to know what she needs if she won’t/can’t speak. She may have decided she’s done and is trying to let go, she may be too weak to tell us what she needs. But she’s home in her bedroom, which is where she wants to be. It’s possible she’ll be asking for a cup of tea in a week, which the hospice nurse has seen, but I’m not hopeful.
Thanks, everyone. The hospice nurse came out yesterday and said she’ll be surprised if Mum lasts two more weeks. She thinks she had a stroke.
Mum was able to ask for and eat a bite of oatmeal, but her body is shutting down.
I noticed her breathing was slowing down. She’ll take a breath, then a couple seconds later take another breath. It’s not continuous breathing like for a healthy person.
I asked about the chance of bedsores, since she’s unable to get out of bed now, but the nurse seemed to think there wouldn’t be enough time for them to develop.
It sounds a bit like my mother at the end (lung cancer as well; she’d had a lung removed a year earlier but it came back). The morphine helped her with the hunger to breathe - she was struggling so much until they started that. In her last few hours she would also pause breathing.
They can certainly move her around in the bed to avoid bedsores - yeah, there might not be time for anything serious but there’s absolutely NO reason to allow any unavoidable discomfort.
Absolutely. I’m going over there after work and I’ll find out what the status is. She seems to be losing motor control of her arms. Could that be the result of the stroke?
Agree that strokes tend to be confined to one side. I would assume that her brain is simply putting less-important areas “offline” in favor of keeping her lungs breathing and heart beating, though I don’t have medical training or experience with end-of-life care.
She was more lucid when I saw her last night, able to hold a brief conversation and give hugs.
Today she’s staring up at the ceiling. The nurse said she’ll be surprised if she’s around on Monday. She may have had another stroke.
The nurse said not to bathe her anymore as that’s causing stress on her body. Obviously her diaper will have to be changed but her output is a lot less than it used to be.
She now has Life Alert.