Are we wanting immortality?

[MsHeffaPiglet]

It's sad that people in care homes have died.

Does it matter whether they died because of cornavirus, rather than a general infection, from a fall, from a stroke or a heart attack or just old age?

If you are 80, 85, 90 or 95, isn't waking up each day a blessing. Does someone of that age expect or want to live forever?

I understand that you want to spend the last moments with loved ones and that is the cruellest thing with coronavirus and the need to isolate from everyone.

However, I just don't understand the shock, horror at the fact that elderly people in care homes have been affected so much. Is it so surprising?

Don your tin hat OP

Well I assume you're blasé about your relatives in care homes dying before their time alone because they'd have died in the next decade or two? You're not bothered about being able to say goodbye to your mom or dad?

Blimey I'm quite cold hearted usually but even I can understand the shock.

Our elderly did not deserve in any way, shape or form to be thrown to the wolves in the way they have been.

You're going to be rightly ripped to shreds with your thinking.

It does sound like a fucking horrible way to die, gasping to breath, rather than drifting off peacefully in your sleep.

At some point we took death away from our homes and in to hospital. Death became removed from our common experience and to some degree removed from our vocabulary.

In a graveyard near me there is a family plot naming four siblings taken within a month. Probably due to smallpox or some other childhood disease which spread through the family. They would have died at home.

We think what we are experiencing now is new but it is as old as the hills.

I read the heading as ‘wanting immorality’.

I agree OP. The very fact that people are in care homes is because they are so frail they cannot cope with everyday activities.

The average life expectancy for those committed to care homes is just two years www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/pensions/article-1707291/Elderly-care-what-you-uneedu-to-know.html.

Realistically, the chances of living for another "decade or two" are extremely low.

My dad died last year in a hospice. Had cancer but was not on his last legs at all. Died suddenly of natural causes (which no one dies of anymore apparently) I hope when this is over sky news have a yellow ticker tape telling us how many people have died everyday. Might give people some perspective.

@PeanutbutterJamSandwich

I'm prepared

@SleepingStandingUp

Lost my mum when she was 62 when she died alone in her sleep in hospital after an operation. I'm approaching that age, so maybe my expectations of a long life are not great. Neither would I want one if I had to live in a care home.

They are someone's family.

@Emeeno1

Well said!

A good friend of mine is 84 and up until this virus became a threat to her, had a better social life than me. Do you feel the same about younger people in care because of their disabilities? What about prisoners who have a good chance of reoffending? What about my daughter’s best friend who has SN and a serious underlying illness who would die if she caught the virus, but could live for a very long time if she doesn’t? I’d there a line, OP, or is it just the elderly that you think are disposable?

I think it's more about the way they are dying. I've been told the care homes don't have oxygen to give, the hospitals are refusing to take patients from them and once they have died it's hard to get a doctor to do a death certificate.

@MsHeffaPiglet I understand what you’re saying. My dh’s grandma has been in a care home for the past 7yrs. She’s 96 and not living, she’s surviving.

My mum is 87 and living in a care home. She could die at any time, of anything I suppose, but this would be a horrible way to die - no visitors allowed, possible warning of death on its way if word gets round that other residents have already died, risk to others (including the staff of course). I fully accept (as does she) that she is not immortal, but this would be a terrible, scary, lonely and undignified way for her to end her life.

I agree OP. I'd like to go before a care home is needed.

I can understand where you’re coming from I suppose OP. I suppose we’re to think that if they hadn’t died because of coronavirus then they would have still had a significant amount of years to live, but actually that’s probably unlikely. If coronavirus hadn’t taken them then some other infection or disease probably would have in the next few months. I have read that the overall death rate for the year wouldn’t change dramatically because of Covid 19 - most people who passed away due to Covid would have probably done so this year anyway. Still, it’s someone’s life and surely every month, week and day still counts, so it’s very saddening nonetheless.

I don’t think people are shocked that old people are so affected by it? Isn’t it more the way they die - usually alone and usually without loved ones. And families not being able to grieve properly, with people being close to support you, or funerals. Being part of the wider news, seeing people break the rules and barely having the energy to say how awful that is. And yes going earlier than expected - even if only a few weeks earlier, well it’s still a shock. I say this as someone who has lost a family friend to corona with more neighbours in ICU with it. I’d be distraught if a relative in a care home died from/ with it as the care home system is obviously often sensitive to helping loved ones pass on with dignity and in some comfort, instead it’s out of their control so much and the homes are seeming now more like death sentences because of how vulnerable they are. Spare a thought for care workers there - yes they see people pass on, but not in such compressed time periods. Also the PPE problem and care homes having been left on their own in this mess. Very sad :(

I always find ‘shock’ or surprise a slightly odd reaction when any elderly person dies, regardless of the cause.

Sadness, upset, despair, yes - but shock?

I have read many a Facebook post in tribute to a much loved grandparent with words along the lines of ‘we all just can’t believe it’. Really? How can you be shocked at the death of a 90 year old? I don’t understand it at all.

My great grandma was in a care home and died aged 92. Every time I saw her she used to say “oh just let me die already.”

When I was a nurse, on several occasions I was screamed at by relatives that “I let mum/dad/grandma/great auntie Flo die.” Never mind that they were in their 90s and very ill or frail.

Of course they were grieving and I would never have said anything to them. But it wasn’t nice to be accused of murder and threatened either. One chap waited for me in the staff car park and threatened to beat me up as I murdered his dad apparently.

I do not want or expect the elderly to be considered as disposable.

However, I cannot be upset or horrified that 90 year old has passed away, whether it was from cancer, coronavirus or old age.

I will reserve that feeling for those at the start of their lives, such as the 13 year old who died, rather than those that have had an extremely long and fruitful life.

I get what I mean OP. I think some people don't realise the level of care a lot of care home residents require. Perhaps because on TV, care home residents travel in a wheelchair sometimes or walk with a limp but apart from that seem fine and spend time wise cracking with nurses. Of course in reality, many residents can't move at all or even talk, and are extremely frail. Suggesting they would commonly live well and happy for "a few more decades" is silly.

For example pp above who said its a horrible way for them to die, may not realise that even during normal times pneumonia is a very common way for care home residents to die. In other times it is caused by another bacteria or virus, not cv, but it's still pneumonia.

When they all die very quickly and painfully from a horrible breathing disease, you don't think that's different to dying peacefully in their sleep of more natural causes?
Why not run them all over with cars once they reach 60.

Are you willing to go tomorrow op?

If every day is a blessing, how could you say that?

It’s possible for something to be a shock, without being a surprise. My child was diagnosed with a disability- I’d suspected for years, it wasn’t a surprise at all. Still felt like a shock and being hit by a train when it was confirmed though.

My grandparent is currently in a care home, in their 90s. Widowed, with several incurable conditions, frail and often miserable. Their death would surprise no one, and they’d probably welcome it. I don’t think that means my family would just sigh, say “oh well” and get on with normal life if they died. It’s possible to believe that heroic efforts shouldn’t be made for the very frail elderly without belittling the importance of their lives to themselves or their loved ones.