For Anyone Needing Support After Losing a Parent. Very Supportive Thread (November 2023)

[Crunchymum]

I hope no-one minds me starting a new thread, the old one is almost full.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/bereavement/4493231-For-Anyone-Needing-Support-After-Losing-a-Parent-Very-Supportive-Thread-March-2022?page=39&reply=130357515

As always lots of love and strength and support to you all xxx

So unbelievably sorry @Poppyrose22, may your darling dad rest peacefully now and be reunited with his family on the other side❤️

I lost my mum very suddenly when I had just turned 30 and had a baby. It’s absolutely awful and hurrendous, there are no words. Feel free to message if you need someone to speak to who isn’t involved.

@HalfasleepChrisintheMorning bless you. This is the bit I suppose where the dust settles and the grieving starts. Im nearly 5 months in now. I still have awful days but I’m slowly but surely having better days too now xx

I’m so sorry @Poppyrose22

Finding this week really difficult. My lovely dad died suddenly and unexpectedly on 1 August last year.

This week has been a week of "this time last year, dh and I had our last lunch with my dad and he leidly showed us the grass that he'd cut down to the loch on the sit-on mower that he'd hired as his one was being repaired", and today, "this time last year I saw my dad for the last time, when I should have forced him to go to A&E but he said he was ok".

I know I shouldn't feel guilty - he was a retired doctor and had already insisted (over the phone) to another friend who was a doctor that he was fine. And he went out on the Sunday night with neighbours of his to a drinks party and although he apparently looked a little unsteady, he was still able to drive home.

We had been supposed to have dinner with him on the Sunday night but he'd called off as he said he didn't "feel up to his usual extravaganza." but he still went out for drinks in the late afternoon

I was feeling unwell myself with bad stomach cramp so only WhatsApped him on Sunday and Monday and asked him how he felt. He'd said "Stable" so when I wrote "so no better then?", he'd replied "a good definition of stable".typical underplaying on his part I wish I'd FaceTimed or talked to him properly

He might have been 86, but he was not long back from 6 weeks in South Africa and we thought we still had many more years to enjoy his wonderful company. As I describe the shock, he was still tall. And great to talk to. Challenged us but also go us good advice.

I miss him

So so dh and ds

@prettybird your Dad sounds lovely

I miss mine so much. I had a moment yesterday where I wanted to call him to ask him something and that really hurt.

Hi all. I've just been finding a strange comfort of sorts reading everyone's messages. It's good to just have a good cry sometimes. My mum died suddenly in March this year. She was 78. We used to speak on the phone several times a week. How I miss those chats, just about everything and nothing and the mundane day to day details of life. I have 2 boys, and there is no one in the world more interested in their lives than mum was. It kills me that I took her so for granted. Sometimes I feel the need to call her and tell her what's happened so strongly it just wipes me out.

My loss was my beloved grandmother, so not a parent but she was the equivalent of another parent. She helped bring me up with my single mum, we were the ‘3 amigos’ and life has just been rubbish since she died. Family hasn’t been much help. I have had support from my church and friends but I am always expected to man up and have a stuff upper lip. Started grief counseling more to deal with the stoicism than the death itself. Just feel such a loser and so misunderstood.

@otravezempezamos I feel like I have experienced the full range of responses now from friends, colleagues etc- from some who have been very kind and thoughtful and still are months later, right through to others who never even acknowledged my loss. Maybe due to that stuff upper lip etc rather than not caring but it can feel very lonely when people do that.

The whole shrink behind your curtains because you can't mention the D word. Honestly all I wanted was a quick text to say thinking of you, how are you doing? I wouldn't use them as a psychiatrist. Just nice to know you are being remembered. But to many, I was 'just a grandchild', which wasn't the truth at all. It's made me so bitter, and I hate that.
I am grateful to my church family who have held me and cared for me like I can't describe. I am so afraid of putting to much on them (probably from always being told 'pull yourself together').
So sorry to you and everyone else for your loss(es). I support you and think of you.

@otravezempezamos So sorry for your loss, too. Your relationship with your grandmother sounds really special. I don't go to church but I have a few friends who I can be myself with and who don't want to just blow past it, thankfully. My dad and brother on the other hand don't really talk openly at all. Sometimes just going through the motions of normal life all day long when nothing feels normal is just exhausting.

I’m struggling with all the admin stuff on top of the grief.
So much to organise with the funeral and now with the estate. I’m an only child and am one of the executors of the will. It feels never ending

I’m really struggling this evening. Dad had a beautiful and perfect send off yesterday for his funeral and I felt quite calm, although exhausted. This evening I feel so flat, sad and angry. I am so angry at the hospital and I am sure their lack of care contributed to his death. In fact I think it is the main reason he died. Some of the nurses and HCA’s were awful… rude, condescending, lazy, incompetent, negligent, terrible at their jobs. My poor Dad. My heart is broken. I want to go in to the hospital and scream and scream and scream at all of them. I won’t, because it wouldn’t bring Dad back, but I so want to.

@Poppyrose22 havevyou heard of pals? Write down everything you feel and think happen and speak to them. They put in claims against NHS x

@Poppyrose22 I feel the same, something went badly wrong for my mum in hospital. I still don't understand how she went in for a broken shoulder and then died. We also witnessed rudeness and incompetence. As soon as I get the post mortem results back I'll be putting in a complaint.

@EveningSunlight sorry to hear you’ve had a similar experience. When did your mum pass away? Dad’s death has been referred to the coroner and an inquest is taking place next year, no post mortem though. Dad went in with a minor infection and came out to a hospice on end of life care. I can’t compute that. So many things happened whilst he was in hospital I don’t have the strength to post about them yet.

@Thby2023 thank you I am going to go down that route when I have the energy. I just have no hope at all, I have seen the hospital cover their backs and lie so many times. And from my understanding PALS work for the hospital?

@Poppyrose22 and @EveningSunlight sending my sympathy. My DM died during Covid but didn’t have it. She was in hospital for something else and a doctor told her to stop taking a certain medication which, I now know (but didn’t at the time), directly led to her death. She was discharged and came home but collapsed and I had to call 999 for the first time ever, thinking she had died. There followed almost 3 weeks of agony of her in hospital with us not allowed to visit her because of Covid. I’m convinced she simply gave up because she thought we’d abandoned her there. We got her home at the end but we lost her 2 days later. I too have many doubts and questions about her treatment in hospital and also massive guilt at my own failure to protect her. I don’t think I’ll ever stop being haunted by it.

Oh @Brillig I am so sorry to hear that. I totally know what you mean by being haunted by it. Did the hospital ever admit to any failings? Did you seek legal advice? I don’t know what route to go down. None of them will bring my darling Dad back. It seems all too common in hospitals.

@Poppyrose22 and @Brillig I'm so sad for you and your families that you've been through similar.

My mum died three months ago, it was unexpected, she'd been in a smaller hospital for a broken shoulder, then began a series of symptoms which led to her being taken to a larger hospital. She had attention and monitoring when she was first taken in and then it all fell apart. She became more and more ill beginning on a Thursday afternoon just before a bank holiday weekend. We were repeatedly told it was 'just delirium' and she'd be back to normal by Tuesday. Nobody listened to my concerns that something was more wrong than this, nobody helped my mum with her pain, panic and distress. On the Monday morning she was unconscious and suddenly we and she were looked after, she was put in a private room, given strong drugs and we stayed with her for 18 hours until she died. Prior to her being unconscious she may as well have been at home for all the help she was given (ie none). It destroyed my faith in hospitals.

In one conversation with a doctor, I was told she was given a certain drug combination in the previous hospital. When I googled this later, I discovered that the drugs should never be combined and can cause death when given together.

The hospital told me cause of death was a stroke but I pushed back and asked for a post-mortem. I still don't have the results of this as samples were sent off for analysis.

Much sympathy to all on this thread who've lost parents, it's so tough isn't it?

I’m so sorry @EveningSunlight and @Poppyrose22. DM used to have a (very nice) health professional who visited her at home and he used to say to me 'as long as we can keep her out of hospital, that’s the best plan - you really don’t want her having to go into hospital.' After she died I realised how right he’d been.

Even with the best will in the world I just feel hospital staff are often too busy and stressed to give enough attention to the patients who can’t advocate for themselves or are too ill or just too timid (as DM was anyway - would never 'make a fuss'). And because all visiting was totally banned then thanks to Covid there was absolutely nobody to speak up for her. I was constantly trying to phone to get updates etc but what can you do by phone?

We didn’t try and take it any further. There just seemed no point as the worst had happened and she was never coming back. But it was just so unbearably sad that we'd taken such good care of her, for years and years (she had heart failure), and it felt as though the hospital - the place where she should have been safe - had let her down. I still can’t believe the doctor who told her to stop taking this particular medication and said she must 'never, ever take it again' - it turned out to be the thing that was actually vital and directly caused her to collapse. After that she just didn’t have a hope of recovering really.

I'm sorry for everyone who is in the same boat - parent/grandparent/aunt or uncle. My dad died 12 years ago from cancer - just two weeks from the diagnosis till he died. He was aware and making sense, finishing my sentences with family sayings until they put the driver in his arm.

My mum unfortunately needed a lot of care as she had very limited mobility because of arthritis and I became her carer until 3 years ago when she had a fall/possible stroke and went into hospital and from there to a nursing home. The dementia that I had been in denial about came to the fore when she was in hospital and together with her physical issues it was agreed that she need care 24/7 that could not be provided in a home.

Four weeks ago I was on my home from a visit to my youngest daughter and I had a call to say that she had had a seizure or a stroke and they had put her to bed in the hope she would sleep it off as she had before. I was too late to visit that night but from the next day we (my cousin and I) visited every day. A couple of times she opened her eyes and acknowledged us but most of the time she was asleep. On the Sunday, the 8th day since she had the seizure we went with the thought that we would be there to the end. Her breathing had changed dramatically and we phoned home and let everyone know what we were doing. After an hour she made a horrendous sound her eyes and mouth opened and slowly relaxed. She still had a very weak pulse but no breathing. So we sat and talked about our memories and we sang with her. She was getting cold as her heart got weaker and we wrapped her in a blanket of photos of the family with the words "Take this blanket, wrap it tight, a special hug from us goodnight." While we sat with her the door was open and carers were coming in to say goodbye and offering us hugs and tea.

And now I miss her so much. I don't even know who I am anymore.

I'm so sorry @IthinkIsawahairbrushbackthere you will be feeling so lost and bereft.

Sending you love as you make your way through the raw and terrible early weeks of grief.

I last posted here in early June when my beloved DM became very ill with a brain tumour, out of the blue.
We cared for her for six weeks at home, and she died on 29 June. She deteriorated steadily at first and then very quickly, and the last 48 hours were hideous, but we were all by her side, at home, as she died. It's been a bit of a blur since then but her funeral was beautiful, full of love, colour and light.
Still can't quite comprehend what happened, so quickly and brutally, but trying to focus on supporting DF, 80, through the sadmin and helping him find his new normal.
Some days I feel totally fine, and others I'm so deep in grief I can't see straight. Tried to sort some of her clothes out recently and it was just too much.
Thinking of everyone else in the same boat.

Just dropping by to wish everyone well. @IthinkIsawahairbrushbackthere I'm so very sorry you feel so lost, I can relate totally to that sense of not recognising yourself any more. But there’s something very beautiful and touching to hear you speak of you being with your mum. These are the things that are very hard but I believe worth it ultimately. The same for you @MargaritaPracticallyCan. Not everyone can share those moments and sometimes they’re difficult - desperately difficult - for us left behind, but we had the chance to accompany our beloved parents to the end and that isn’t given to all of us.

I was with my mum too, and just at the moment I’m having some struggles with memories of that time (coming up to 4 years ago). But I'm still so glad she died with me and my DSis holding her hands. Sending hugs to you.

@Brillig thank you, and hugs to you too, I hope you find comfort remembering how you were able to be there with your mum - I do feel content that we were able to care for mum until the end, we wouldn't have done things differently, despite the emotional toll.
Most days I feel settled and like I'm coping just fine - and then I wonder if I am actually okay, or if I'm just refusing to accept/deal with things. The hardest times are when I'm back at DM&DFs house and she's not there. Or when DF is upset, that's awful.
Keeping busy with work and getting DCs ready for uni. We just took a family trip which we had to postpone when mum was ill, and she was adamant we still went on - it was just what we needed as a family. Sending hugs x

@Brillig must of been harrowing but I so wish I could of been with my mum when she passed I hate the thought of her being scared or lonely 😭

I was so naive. I assumed any NHS or Care Home Staff were " the good guys"
It was pretty grim sometimes.
This and a falling out about money, adds to the loss.

Sorry everybody struggling.