Long story short - 3 years of treatment for 74 year old DM’s secondary cancer mets, now receiving palliative treatment. DF dead, she lives alone, only person to help her is me. Her mobility is very poor and will only get worse - zimmer at home and wheelchair to go out. Getting her in and out of the car becoming more difficult. She is on very strong painkillers which make her a bit confused - she often doesn’t know if it’s day or night, can’t remember if she’s eaten etc.
The cancer is eating her pelvis and once it fractures again there is nothing surgically they can do, so it will be game over, stuck in a bed until she dies.
She falls, frequently. 3 weeks ago she fell and was kept in hospital for 11 days, while they worked on her use of zimmer and physio etc. A few days after getting home she tried to walk across the room without using the zimmer or her sticks, so of course she fell. When I got there she told me she was using the zimmer, which was in a different room, then she said she’d been using 2 sticks - but they were nowhere near her. She tries to cruise around the house like a toddler, hanging onto furniture which moves, so she falls. I got upset and challenged her version events, she screamed at me that she wants to die anyway.
This past week she has fallen and been taken into hospital for 2 nights, was home for less than 24 hours when she fell again - nurses from a community team came to lift her but said she had to be admitted as she couldn’t remember falling and clearly wasn’t safe at home, which I completely agree with.
Just had a call from hospital social worker to say Mom is refusing a package of care because she doesn’t need any help - she has a neighbour that goes in once a week to do cleaning and I take her shopping once a week, so she’s fine.
I feel like screaming. She is clearly not coping and is not fine. I’ve been told by a friend who used to manage a care home that what mom needs is a nursing home, as she’s too far gone for a care home. One of the visiting nurses told me that even a full package of care wouldn’t be suitable as Mom will fall in between the carer visits. Meanwhile, in Mom’s deluded, she’s refused to have even a single carer visit per day.
People look at me like I should be able to sort this out. They say “Have a word with your mom” or “It’s time for a serious talk with her”, like that’s never crossed my mind for a bloody moment! I can’t talk to her. It’s like dealing with a petulant toddler - all “I want, I want” and no acceptance of the stark reality of the situation. It feels like this is a game to mom and she’s happy because she thinks she’s winning - her end goal is to be left alone in her house, but with me and various neighbours on call to help when she falls, which is unworkable and selfish.
I’m so angry and tired and sick of the whole situation. The past couple of weeks I’ve started to mentally and emotionally disengage, because it’s really dragging me down and affecting all other aspects of my life. I can’t cope with this hanging over my head all of the time, waiting for the next phone call.
I know she’s terminally ill and in pain and desperate to cling onto whatever she sees as her independence, but she’s not independent at all. She can’t go anywhere or do much without help. If she’d accept this her life would be so much better. There’s a very expensive, new nursing home locally which looks like a boutique hotel. She could be safe and looked after there, with fancy meals, activities and company for whatever is left of her life. But no, she’d rather spend it socially isolated, bored, lonely and wishing she were dead while lying in a puddle of her wee on the floor.
I can’t get my head around it and I can’t cope any more.