Hi,
I am new here . I have had a turbulent 5 years with mums health , one that I have no regrets of being part of her care team .
I hope you don’t mind me telling you a bit about the background of why I am not copying with my mums passing .
I have 3 sisters , one lives up north and the other two like myself live close to mum .
Mum was very well , nothing medically wrong with her but after Covid her health declined . Well it was just after she turned 80 we noticed she was starting to move slower and she found things at home hard . After a battle of trying to find out what was wrong mum got diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.
We ensured mum had round the clock care with us there morning , lunch time and evening . Mum was still able to go upstairs so she was ok to go to bed . We bought these screens from Amazon so we call mum and we would talk to her before she got into bed and then we could disconnect it . In the morning we would do the same downstairs as mum was an early riser and watched her take her medication. She loved it as she could be in contact with her when we couldn’t be with her the rest of the time.
As time went on we put cameras on throughout the house where we could still talk to her but it wasn’t as clear but it was more for safety because it got to that time when we needed carers to help because she got bed ridden and was double incontinent.
We still went round there as usual but they had to change her and wash her because we just couldn’t move her . Then disaster struck .
Mum got a very serious bed sore . The district nurses said it was very serious. It was a massive deep hole which just sunk in . We had 3 set of carers and the first 2 we had to rid of as there care was atrocious. We could see it on the cameras . They didn’t notice that mum had a bed sore so by the time the district nurses were told by our last carers it was serious.
Mum got very ill because of it and ended up in hospital with sepsis . She was in there for 6 weeks . I never left her side . Mum had stopped talking by then and she needed feeding and I didn’t trust anyone with her so I stayed by her bed .
They found the infection had got to her bones and there was nothing they could do for her . She went in end of October , came out in December just 2 weeks before Christmas .
Mum just got worse at home . One morning the carers called me to say mum wouldn’t take her tablets. I told them to leave it as the Hospice nurses said if she didn’t want them to leave it as they wouldn’t be of any use now.
I got ready and I went round about 11 am and decided to call the doctors just to make them aware that mum was refusing her medication. I walked into where she had her bed and mum was sleeping so I went back into the kitchen . I normally go into see her and give her drink and chat /kiss before I start to do anything else . That day was different. The carers came in and then they came to me to say mum had passed away . I said , no she hasn’t she was alive and asked them what had they done to her . I was distraught . We had the hospice nurses round the Friday before and we asked them how mum was doing . Was it time for me to move in . She said that mum wasn’t actively dying .
Mum was warm so I was convinced she was sleeping . I called my sisters to come to the house . The ambulance turned up .
I can’t forgive myself that I didn’t check her when I went straight in . I could have been with her when she went . I ask myself why didn’t I go earlier . Did my mum call for us ? Was she scared ?
Mum passed February last year and I have the image of mum when I found her. Everyday it pops in my head.
My youngest sister and I did everything for our mum . She went on holiday with us . She was involved with our families . She was with either my sister or me so we have this heavy heart that we didn’t do enough for mum when she was ill.
Even when we are told that we couldn’t have done any more it isn’t any comfort . Mum was everything to us . There is such a big void like there was when my dad passed .
We are a big Italian family and being together is everything. Mealtimes , seeing each other . Knowing they are only at the end of the phone .
Now our parents have gone there is only my sister and I that are close . We have opened up trying to bring our other two sisters in but they are only interested in the sale of mums house .