So bloody exhausted waiting for someone to die 3

[StiffyByngsDogBartholomew]

Carrying on from our first two threads..
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/elderly_parents/4967638-so-bloody-exhausted-waiting-for-someone-to-die-2

Antibiotics are part of palliative care symptom control.

They also prolong life.

I'm very sorry you're in this difficult situation.

I would like to think they are being prescribed to ease the discomfort of an infection. Dementia patients are not (I hope) in discomfort from the bodily functions (hunger, thirst) shutting down. It's very hard to know, and I'm sure there are cases where antibiotics (and other meds) are given when not necessary as part of palliative care.

I am sorry you and your Mum are going through this.

@GoldenSpraint sorry you and your mother are going through this.

Do you have an LPA for health in place? Even without it you are next of kin. I would be having a frank discussion with the doctors about whether antibiotics were in her best interests given she doesn't have a diagnosis of an infection and has poor quality of life and long term prognosis.

I take @CharlotteBog point that antibiotics can be part of palliative care but they can also prolong life and there are pain relief options and end of life drugs that may be more suited to an elderly patient with poor QoL than antibiotics are.

My DF has had quite a few rounds of antibiotics for colds and the like. He can't move, see or speak, is doubly incontinent and, well, you wouldn't try to prolong a dog or cat's life in these circumstances.

Me, my sister and my Mum have a power of attorney and my Dad has an end of life plan. The last time he was about to die - which amazingly was 2.5 years ago now and he's hung on since - the hospital wired him up to the ABs by the time I got there. I did try to say that he didn't have a great quality of life (he didn't, and he's got a rare degenerative disease that will kill him slowly and even then was immobile and incontinent, although could hold a conversation for a short time) but my Mum shouted over me that he had a great quality of life. The consultant came back to ask us who had POA but by that point he'd pulled back from the brink.

I then managed to get a copy of his "end of life plan" from my mum and it was awful. My Dad wasn't daft and I don't know what he was thinking. It was a template with a series of tick boxes about in what circumstances he'd like to be kept alive then some quite vague and contradictory statements about his religious beliefs.

He'd also previously told my sister he wanted a DNR and had told us all previously, for years, that he didn't want to be kept alive in a care home.

My mum is, however, absolutely determined to keep him going. I don't really speak to her anymore (for this and other reasons), but she claims not to know what medications he's actually on, and basically authorises and campaigns for any medical inventions she can get.

She even tried to get DF referred for cataract surgery and went around badmouthing the local optician when he refused to do a referral without writing it was on her request on it. Also she claims Dad communicates with her although he hasn't been able to speak to me or my sister for well over a year, and not made any sense since the episode with the hospital.

So no, no clear plan and even if there was one I think it would be quite difficult to somehow overrule her.

@HoraceGoesBonkers @GoldenSpraint I believe advanced directives have to be very specific and a person has to list the conditions they’d refuse treatment for and specific treatments they’d refuse, for example tube feeding. Even so I’m really unsure how legally binding they are. It’s just so awful how a life with no quality is endlessly prolonged.

This probably isn’t the right thread for this but I’m hoping someone can help. Last week I discovered that my step dad’s house isn’t registered with the land registry. Has anyone had any experience of selling an unregistered property. I think my step dad will need care I think my step dad will need care in the future and I’ll be the one selling his house. I really don’t want delays to any potential sale so I’m wondering if I should go ahead and register the property. I have POA and the deeds.

My mums house is similarly unregistered on the online Land Registry because my parents bought the house decades ago when it was still a paper based system. I spoke to a solicitor to ask exactly the same question.

The gist of the conversation was that the key is knowing the location of the deeds of the house. In mums case, it is the national archives of the building society who had their mortgage, which took a bit of tracking down. As long as you have those, then there is no legal reason to do an online registration. Any sale will proceed using the old, paper based conveyancing process, which is still perfectly legal and valid. The purchaser will then do the online registration after sale completion.

However, both vendor and purchaser will need to have solicitors/ conveyancers who are familiar with the old process as the guy I spoke to reckoned it’s not taught any more. His experience was that many new solicitors don’t know the paper process and insist the vendor registers first. The problem with that is that the Land Registry has a backlog and at the time of my consultation last year, new registrations were taking 9 months to a year. Obviously that is a huge delay in any sale! Hence his advice to not bother, get an old-school solicitor that knows the old process and let a purchaser do the registration after sale, because the delay on registration will just be an administrative thing after the buyers have moved in.

I think the paper based conveyancing is a bit more expensive than the electronic version, as it’s more labour intensive so the solicitor also warned about buyers grumbling and trying to get you to pay the extra costs.

hope that helps!

I had a robust conversation regarding my late DM’s re keeping her alive. It sounds awful written down but constantly giving them antibiotics and then shipping back to often a care home is often a terrible thing to see.

In the end they made her comfortable but didn’t actively treat anything, Mum wanted to go. She had no quality of life and it was a relief in the end to see she wasn’t suffering any longer.

On a similar note to treatment for infections, I’m not bothering getting mums Covid and flu jabs done. She doesn’t go anywhere anyway.

Many thanks @funnelfan. It sounds quite a logistical nightmare either way. I’d also read that most newly trained solicitor’s aren’t familiar with the old paperwork. I don’t think my step father’s property is going to be easy to sell as it’s in an area where there’s always numerous similar properties on the market and I think any buyer would withdraw at the first hint of problems/delays.

It’s very much an “it depends” decision I think. In our case I let it go because mums house is in a very desirable location - there is a very low turnover and high demand, even for those in need of modernisation as long as they’re priced sensibly. It’s probably worth talking to a solicitor in the area of your step dads house to get a feel for what they think the key factors are locally.

The guy I spoke to was the son of the solicitor that did DP’s original conveyancing in the sixties, and he was on the edge of retirement himself. He was quite, er, robust in his opinion of the training for new solicitors. I got the impression it’s not particularly difficult or time consuming doing the paper process as long as both parties know what they’re doing.

Just checking in to send hugs and loves to all still going on this journey. My dad is about to finally make a move from assessment bed to a nursing home (after many returns to hospital that kept bouncing him back to assessment beds). He is completely unrecognisable to the man he was six months ago. The old him would never want this existence.
And in the meantime, the stress of trying to sort out the sorry state of my parents' health and affairs has put my own family life and marriage under immense strain.
This doesn't seem fair or reasonable, and while I know life is under no obligation to be fair or reasonable and there are far far worse things happening in the world right now, I am having a pity party over a glass of wine in the wreckage of my childhood home.
I shall be fine tomorrow, and back to my usual Pollyanna cope, getting stuff done, but thank you for letting me moan tonight. Solidarity to everyone dealing with the same sad shit xx

@rosemarypetticoat Enjoy the well deserved glass of wine. It’s just so sad and awful isn’t it. People really should have the right to a dignified death not the painful and protracted one most are forced to suffer.