Are we at the end of the road?

[SnowyOwl]

My Mum 87 has Alzheimers. sorry this is long
After numerous accidents including falling down stairs sustaining high impact injuries including hitting her head. Fracturing her shoulder and hip in a separate fall and another fracturing a vertebra, as well as several others requiring long hospital stays she is still at home. My saint of a husband cares for her with Carer input and my daughters and I fill in the rest including night shift.
Since Christmas she has slept more through the day, had very restless evenings and more recently not eaten anything sensible and getting her to drink is so hard.
Sometimes she looks at us as if she has glass eyes and speaking an alien language. She needs telling nearly every step and as soon as she is near a seat her bottom starts sitting. She also has the amazing ability to try to stand whilst her bottom is magnetised to the seat. We have had several near misses and both my husband and I are carrying injuries from preventing falls
For the last 12 months she has called me Mum and now she is clear that I am her daughter. She cannot watch anything on tv without bring in it and we cannot watch midsommer murders as she becomes suspicious and spits her coffee back n her cup in case its poisoned.
But now she doesnt understand me, she is going off her legs and 3 chips and a few bits of chocolate arent enough to sustain her, She was so frightened tonight and she couldnt talk about it-ultimately she doesnt want to die but is this something that is closer than we would want. Her first great grandchild id due in the summer, I want her to meet him-I am afrais she might not. My heart is breaking and I am crying writing this

 

[karaokePete]

That must be very distressing for all of you. However, it doesn't read like the final stages yet so fingers crossed that she will meet that first great grandchild.

Maybe fortified drinks would be taken by your mum and help her along to that great occasion.

 

[Chrissie B]

Group hugs SnowyOwl.
My mum has been on the paranoia tv programs and afraid to die stage for about a year now. It's horrible when they can't tell real from fantasy. I know that usually people say that you should just agree with everything they say, but I found this is one of the occasions to keep on saying "It's not real, it's only pretend" Otherwise they get more and more worried and fretful because all those people are in the house. The help the children adverts are a nightmare because my mum gets very upset when I don't let them live in the house, and I become the bad person who is allowing all those poor children to stay in the tv where they are clearly upset.
Turning the TV off isn't an option when this happens, because somehow I've made these people disappear, and she gets very cross, and upset. About 6 months ago, she went onto the people on tv are saying nasty things to me or about me stage.
My mum went through months of being so convinced she couldn't breathe because she had hiccups, and became so uncontrollable when this happened that she would choke and splutter, cry out loudly, and get herself worked up, I actually called 111 because even though the hiccups were unlikely to kill her, I was convinced that her hysteria would. It never did of course, and usually, if they did send the paramedics over, she was fine after 15 minutes of them being there, I guess they made her feel safe. Got the doctor to remove the anti-cholesterol tablets and cut her down on fizzy drinks, the combination of which has stopped the hiccups coming so often.
Sometimes distraction works at the beginning of the paranoia stage, if you can move into a place where they have to move their head to a new direction to see you, and you can attract their attention in a calm way, moving the head can distract them from that particular line of thought, and quite often they forget why they were getting upset.

 

[Chrissie B]

My mum quite often doesn't think the food we give her is her's, even when she's hungry. Her carer actually feeds her sometimes to ensure she gets something warm to eat. If you think she is scared you are trying to poison her and that is why she is not eating, you could eat a little bit of what you are about to give her first, when she sees you eat it first, she should work out that it isn't poisoned.

 

[charlie10]

so sorry your mum is frightened @SnowyOwl ......I think seeing the person who always made you feel safe now feeling frightened and insecure must be heartbreaking. My FiL is frightened, but wishing he wasn't here any more.....hard to get them to accept comfort and reassurance. Have you spoken to her dr or a nurse about her eating/drinking/weakness? Maybe you could reinforce what she will eat with hidden calories......my dad has a problem with eating enough as he has lost his sense of taste.....I've told him to add cream, butter, cheese etc to everything and eat spoonfuls of peanut butter, puddings etc.....anything he fancies as long as it goes down....healthy eating is a thing of the past. I hope this is a momentary blip and she perks up enough to greet the new baby

 

[SnowyOwl]

Thank you all for your kind words its helpful to know its a phase. She is scared of the weather today after watching a countryfile rerun!! Its so hard and we have already walked this raod similarly with my F-i-L. So very hard to know what to do some days xx

 

[SnowyOwl]

That must be very distressing for all of you. However, it doesn't read like the final stages yet so fingers crossed that she will meet that first great grandchild.

Maybe fortified drinks would be taken by your mum and help her along to that great occasion.