It's very, very long as it's a bit of a brain dump, but it gives the story of what happened (and so as not to drip feed), so thanks for reading:
Just that. It was inevitable, really, but hard to deal with all the same.
She's 80, very frail and has emphysema.
She went into hospital on New Year's Eve with what we both thought was an exacerbation of her emphysema, this time being different as she was so weak she couldn't get out of bed. It turned out she has flu.
All along, I've had phone calls about packages of care, including today.
I've been visiting every other day on work days, and at weekends, meanwhile calling every day to see how she's doing. (No mobile signal where she is so I couldn't phone her directly.)
I last saw her on Wednesday, when she was up and out of bed, but very anxious as she felt she couldn't breathe, but her SATs were ok, so I put it down to a panic attack as she had one the previous evening (I only found this out when I was visiting.) She did also tell me the doctor had told her 'she was on her way out', meaning that she was dying. As she has emphysema I didn't read too much into this - as no one had spoken to me about it I assumed it was about the progression of her emphysema, but I did call and ask to speak to her doctor. As you can guess, the doctor didn't call me yesterday.
When I called the ward yesterday I was told she was settled and comfortable. (I took this to mean she was less anxious and doing ok.)
Today I got a call about her discharge, with the nurse asking questions about the care she currently has, and about her oxygen level she uses when at home. The nurse did mention that she has pneumonia, which I was surprised by. I told her I was expecting a call from the doctor and the nurse said she would make sure I got one.
I got the call just as I was arriving at the hospital. The doctor said that the treatment wasn't working and that they would try a stronger antibiotic, but if there was no response by the end of the weekend, they would put DM on 'comfort care'.
I then walked in to the side room DM is in (because of flu) to find her in bed, slightly disoriented, telling me she is dying. We spoke for a little bit about how she was and she could respond here and there.
It was obvious she had received no mouth care as her lips were caked in dried saliva. She was also thirsty so I helped her to drink a little water. I left eventually as she was distressed at the thought of making me worry and kept telling me to go home. Of course, I will go back tomorrow or earlier if anything changes.
I'm devastated.
I've always known DM would die sooner rather than later, but I had been given no forewarning that she had deteriorated so badly.
I could go on about the series of events that included poor patient care and poor communication, but I'm not here to bash the NHS.
I've had to contact my siblings who live overseas and tell them the situation, tell my DCs and also call my DM's one remaining sister who, after the loss of all but one of her sisters (my DM), is also facing losing my cousin, who has terminal cancer.
It's shit, I don't want to do this again. (I've already been through it six years ago when my DDad died of pancreatic cancer just 28 days after diagnosis.)
