MIL has osteoarthritis and a fused spine amongst other medical things. Following a fall last year, she ended up in hospital where they found bowel cancer and resulted in a 6 month stay where she lost mobility because of her refusal to get out of bed. She also has chronic pain which is under control morphine patches.
She has just got out of hospital again, this time a 10 day stay which should have only been a day patient and they diagnosed CPOD and we've been told heart failure last year which she never told us about, or maybe didn't know about as she was pretty ill anyway.
She currently lives in a small one bed flat in what used to be sheltered accommodation but now help can only be given by community care alarm.
She has 2 carers that come in 4 times a day to get her out of bed (hoisted), into her chair. She also likes to go back to bed after lunch for a sleep. They cook for her, dress her, bathe her, give her her medication. Basically all she does is feed herself.
We visit every day. I do a lot of running around for her, shopping, paying bills, taking her to go appointments in her wheelchair etc.
She keeps phoning us for trivial things, like making her a cup of tea, picking up dropped remotes for the TV, and also for things like moving her leg an inch to the left which she could domherself simply by raising the hospital bed but she doesn't see why she should when others can do it for her. This can be during the day, it can be at 3am in the morning.
I am exhausted, DH is exhausted and it is causing arguments between us. We cannot convince her to move somewhere where there is 24 hour care so they can make sure she is looked after. She is happy being cared for the way she is,my apply to wake us up to come move her.
The thing is, if we refuse to do these things then she always seems to get ill, or needs to phone the doctor out for something. I feel like this is what it's going to be like until she dies, and I don't want to wish her dead.