So bloody exhausted waiting for someone to die 2

[StiffyByngsDogBartholomew]

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/elderly_parents/4866628-so-bloody-exhausted-waiting-for-someone-to-die?page=1
Carrying on from our original discussion

So like this, @Metoo15

@StiffyByngsDogBartholomew This is brilliant news for your daughter. I’m so pleased for you.

Thank you, everyone.
@StiffyByngsDogBartholomew , I promise you that it does end, though I often doubted it myself and wondered if my poor little mum would end up being driven to my own funeral.
@Valleyofthedollymix , you most certainly are my people.

Aah thank you. You learn something new everyday even at my age 🤣

@Tara336 two days after my father died my mother hissed at me with venom 'you broke my heart when you stole my car'. And I should have said, gosh I'm sorry, it must be so hard not having a car, how frustrating for you.

Obviously that's what I should have said, but I was actually so angry that I stood up and walked out as I was worried otherwise we'd be planning a double funeral. My mother can't walk, has a live-in carer, can't remember where she lives, really quite advanced dementia, her friends were calling me up demanding that I take away the car. I sold it right at the peak of the secondhand market for 16k - a stupid little car that did 10 miles a week and was covered in bumps and scratches from the bad driving!

Yet still she maintains, 'Valley stole my car'. And the friends who weren't ringing me up demanding I get rid of it, keep telling me 'oh your mother's so upset about the car'.

Arggggh.

@PermanentTemporary Do the care home listen to your views or take what you say on board? My Mum is like a breathing corpse - unresponsive, doubly incontinent and needs absolutely everything doing for her. We never had a great relationship but I wouldn’t wish her life on anyone. It’s obvious that she doesn’t want to eat but the care staff tap her mouth with a spoon to produce a reflex action and then shovel food in. She gets all the vaccines as well and of course everything is treated. I wish they’d just stop.

But if theirs is long, rather than hitting Quote, use @Metoo15 to attract their attention, then copy and paste the bit you're replying to, and put a * immediately in front of it and behind it (no spaces) to put it in bold.

@popularinthe80s I've only just read your post. So sorry

@StiffyByngsDogBartholomew I didn't take in the figure the first time round. That's wonderful!

@Metoo15 It's difficult. It's taken me just shy of 5 years to start getting rid of my father's things. And I still feel a bit bad about it. I haven't come to terms to how to deal with his father's undergraduate textbooks - very important to my father but not to me (he died when I was 7, and wasn't a presence in my life)

Does your friend not know that, whatever you may secretly think, first rule of friendship is that you accept that your friend is feeling what she says she's feeling, and do not try to tell her it's not as bad as all that? Because even if you think it's be easier, you are not your friend, and you will not react in the same way.

Yes very true , how does friend know how I’m feeling, I hadn’t told her and she didn’t ask, just said it was harder once they’d past away .
I’ve just had enough today. I’ve taken a kalm herbal tablet to try and relax 🙄

@MereDintofPandiculation i would have been very exceedingly pleased with £25k, we'd prepared ourselves that there would be a large debt left on the lifetime mortgage so i wasn't really expecting much to be leftover after paying all the death costs. So you can imagine how pleased i am. Dad told me for thr last 20 years that i was the beneficiary so it was a bit of a disappointment to find that was not the case as i was hoping to clear some of thr mortgage but its still a brilliant thing for us and really great for Dd.

now I'm just worrying about what impact it will have on eligibility for any student loans etc in the future

This is what needs to stop; im not sure that legalising euthanasia is necessarily the answer but stopping treating people where the sole result is keeping them alive longer with no quality of life seems to be a much more important issue. Who is benefitting (although I know we debated this at length on the first thread)

now I'm just worrying about what impact it will have on eligibility for any student loans etc in the future That would be annoying! At the moment it looks like just income that’s taken into account.

@AgitatedGoose - they have done, eventually, but my God we have had to fight. Even in Mum's most recent infection, which I do think will eventually end her life, the GP prescribed antibiotics and thank goodness the nurses rang us. She has had antibiotics crossed off her chart for well over a year. We have been really nasty, the family you don't want to be, that we are too TIRED to be, but we don't have any choice if we want to try to prevent the continued abuse of my mother by keeping her alive.

The person you need to get on side is the GP - and unfortunately that means getting to every GP and getting flags on the record etc. Ask for a Best Interests meeting with the GP and the care home staff.

So I wrote this analogy In my journal & I wanted to share it with you.

Waiting for someone to die is like waiting for a tidal wave to come & sweep your home and all your belongings in it away.

You can see the wave coming, but you aren't sure how close it is yet. You can feel the breeze & taste the salty air. It's not going to hit for a while so you can carry on doing your normal day to day things like cooking, or watching a movie with your loved ones.

It's inevitable, sooner or later it will hit.

One morning you look up & it's so much closer now and you swear you only looked away for a second. What do you do in those final few months, weeks, or even days? How do you stay strong?

Because soon it will hit and you aren't sure how bad the impact will be, but what you do know is that there will be a million pieces of your home and everything that belongs to you scattered over a calm sea.

I agree. How can we lobby for this to stop?

@popularinthe80s im so sorry for the loss of your DM. It’s a profound relief but also such a sadness too. Such a finality to it all.

Its so odd to be on the other side.

You crave the release of the relentlessness but then when it comes something equally difficult mentally in some ways replaces it. An emptiness and a longing for a better time from the past when things were good.

im still processing it all and what it means. I miss her so much. I sometimes feel very alone.

Take care and wish you strength and fortitude for the next few weeks getting things sorted out.

Thank you all for sharing your experiences.

@StiffyByngsDogBartholomew @Metoo15 @Valleyofthedollymix I think that car represents DF dementia to us. He saved up a long time to but it, polished it all the time (my car gets washed if DH takes it) maintained it beautifully he adored it and enjoyed driving.

I started refusing to go in a car with him as his driving was terrible. One by one family members began gently suggesting he give up and DM became a nervous wreck at the thought of getting in a car with him. He was still trying to drive a few months before he was sectioned and we did the keys in the end as the DVLA were unbelievably unhelpful when we tried to get his license revoked, they were writing to DF asking if he was fit to drive! He was of course writing back saying yes!

When I had DF sectioned we had 3 different professionals in the house and he was more with it that day. He spoke to the psychiatrist and said he would go with them if he would help get his licence back and the psychiatrists said he would. I dont think i will ever forget DF winking at me and saying "I think you found the right person to me".

When I looked at the car to take photos in the garage it was immaculate except for a dent in the wing and scuffed bumper which he had tried to repair himself, he would have never left his car like that before dementia it would have been straight to a body shop. DM said it was done when trying to get the car out if the garage as his spatial awareness had become appalling.

Even though its sensible to get rid of the car and DF will never set eyes on it again, it's a huge piece of him that's going and it's so sad.

@JellyWellyBoots your tidal wave imagery is spot on. You know the immense destruction is coming. But you can't avoid it.
@JaffaCake24 and @MereDintofPandiculation thank you warmly, and anyone else who has offered their condolences and I have missed them. I swear that bereavement has removed 20 of my already meagre IQ points.
@StiffyByngsDogBartholomew

Sorry, pressed 'post' too soon. @StiffyByngsDogBartholomew yes the prolongation of life needs to be openly debated. I think someone upthread described this as abuse- it's an appropriate description. This thread and my own experiences have opened my eyes, and now I see it everywhere.
@Tara336 my father felt exactly the same way about his car. It must be such a painful reminder, just sitting there, unused.

Oh bless, thank you for asking. Mum has had a series of TIAs and is in the rehab unit of her local hospital. She is virtually bedridden although the physios are doing their best to keep her moving IYSWIM. We are waiting for her next assessment to see if she can go home and what sort of care she needs. I would say at this stage she needs 4 visits a day to wash/dress her, make her lunch, make her tea, undress her & put her to bed and then I think she would need someone staying over each night as well, plus someone to do her shopping/ leaning etc. Not good.

Just catching up with the thread. @popularinthe80s I'm so sorry about your mum. I can imagine that feeling of disorientation. Much love to you.

Oh goodness, this is exactly the same state my mum is in. It's beyond grim, isn't it.

What I don't understand is how people can be working looking at all these people that are little better than living corpses and think "this is much better than them being dead"
maybe they are just so used to it they don't see it any more, see them as people but just a task they need to do "try and give Mrs Lewis something to eat" without questioning why we are trying to prolong her miserable existence. I feel now that it's got to the point that for a lot of people it's state sanctioned torture

@moggerhanger , thank you, deeply.

@StiffyByngsDogBartholomew - 'maybe they are just so used to it they don't see it any more' - having worked alongside care home staff, I would absolutely agree. And the cynic in me would suggest that the 'thing' that keeps this racket going is a toxic mixture of the institutionalisation you refer to, medics and clinicians who are too scared to stop treatment post-Shipman, and, let's be frank, the amount of money that care homes rake in.

My DM has gone very rapidly downhill over the last couple of weeks and is more often than not being fed. Today she was 'eyes open but no one home', just staring. Her mouth was hanging open anyway, then a bit of of food would be shoved in and then a repetition by the carer of 'chew, chew your food' until she started to.
She's doubly incontinent. If she ever talks, it's gibberish. It's grotesque. I don't know what the solution is because her letter of wishes does state that she wants feeding orally(not by tube thank God) so obviously it had to be done. But dignity and pride were so important to her when she was 'her' and it's just so undignified.
I wish it would end.