How Much Longer

[Natashalou]

Can this living hell continue? My mother, now aged 80, has deteriorated a lot in the last couple of months. She can hardly see now, and a recent test revealed nothing more can be done, her eyes have just ceased to function.
She can hardly walk, stumbling a few steps and has had a number of falls.
She is doubly incontinent most of the time although she occasionlly remembers she never makes it to the toilet. She seems to now be pretty deaf too.
She wont really eat unless someone sits and coaxes her even then it is a few mouthfulls no more.
She is totally and completely confused asking the same questions over and over and over.AND OVER.
When she isnt doing that she talks rubbish which makes no sense and then gets really aggresive when people dont understand what she means.
She was always a difficult person and now I feel I just cant bear to even see her in this state at all. And I wonder if she would know or care if I stopped seeing her as she never seems to remeber she saw me the day before (Ive been visiting daily for the last week)
Will she soon just slip into final stage and be unaware of anything or will she stay here like this which I suppose is a 6 for years?

 

[connie]

Dear Natasha, would that we had answers.

Mum could stay in this condition for months, years, who knows.

Would we really want to know, would we be any happier for knowing?

Only you can decide whether mum is aware of your visits, and whether she gets anything from them. Personally I think our loved ones do, although they do not remember.

If daily visits are just too hard, why not go every other day, or whenever you feel you can. You are not abandoning your mum, just trying to deal with the practicalities that we all have to face, sooner or later.

My heart goes out to you. Stay strong.

 

[christine_batch]

Dear Natasha,
If only we had answers as to how long.
Peter is in the last stage and E.M.I. Unit and no longer knows me.
Like many others it breaks my heart after each visit.
I use to go everyday but because of my health it was taking it's toll and have had to taper off daily visits.
Being completey honest, I just wish he passed away peacefully in his sleep .
As he was diagnoised aged 58 and now 62, all our plans for the future were not to be.
I wish you the strength for what you are going through.
Best wishes
Christine

 

[Grannie G]

Hello Natasha.

I know the torture of visiting, when it really seems a token and you have no idea whether or not your visits make any difference.

Whatever stage your mother`s in, does the home consider she only has a short time left, or do they think she can stay as she is for a while?

If her life is hanging on a thread, I can understand the need for frequent visits. If she could live for a good while longer I would cut then down.

When my mother was at that stage, I was working full time and was too tired at the end of the day to visit. I visited every Saturday and Sunday and that was sufficient. My mother knew no different.

Take care xx

 

[Chrissyan]

Oh Natashalou, I have absolutely no intention of starting a euthanasia debate on here, but it has to be said we don't do this to animals. My cousin recently said to me that she was a bad person for wishing her mother dead. My Aunt had advanced vascular dementia, ovarian cancer, c. diff & DVT. It must be so hard for you to watch your mother stuggle on with so little quality of life. What the answer is I have no idea, I just want send you hugs.
x

 

[Margarita]

Does read like its tormenting you in seeing you seeing your mother
in this stage in what you are seeing, its the reality of dementia.

I try really hard to forget how are relationship was as a mother daughter before dementia . our relationship how it was before dementia only lives on in my thoughts memory, so its all in the past which is dead and gone, but she still my mother a human being in fount of me who gave birth to me , that the only reality the only truth .

when it gets all to depressing for me to see her like this, I try to occupy my thoughts on something that make me feel positive .

She is totally and completely confused asking the same questions over and over and over.AND OVER.
When she isnt doing that she talks rubbish which makes no sense and then gets really aggresive when people dont understand what she means.

My mother also like that gets aggressive when people don;t understand her , which I feel is a normal reaction because of what is happing to her, if I was in her shoes I am sure I would be feeling the same


I ask myself that , how long is this going on I say to myself how long is a peace of string, because
If we think logic realistically someone with a dementia can live long time , if they are in good physical health .

 

[BettyBoo]

Hi,
I read your problem with interest. My mum has also deteriorated over the past six months and is practically blind. She shuffles and has quite a lot of falls. She won't eat or drink unless prompted. She is badly dehydrated and has started to pick the skin off her lips which really irritates me.
Sometimes she is lucid, but most of the time questions are asked over and over again and also the rubbish comes out to which I don't understand.
I put her into Respite Care recently to give me a break and also to monitor her weight, she has gained a few pounds, but her problem will be when she comes out on Sunday and go back to her Sheltered Housing Flat and then we will start everything again before she went into the Nursing Home. I work full time and am exhausted enough without going out in the evenings to put her to bed.
I feel as though my life is not my own anymore and wonder like you - how much longer? .....
Best wishes
BettyBoo

 

[Margaret W]

Dear Natasha

I have no experience of what you are going through, so ignore my comments if you wish. I just feel that you should still visit your mum, cos you don't really know how important that is to her, probably very important. I know that my mum, in a much earlier stage of the disease, doesn't know if I have visited or not, and it would be possible to not visit and think she hadn't noticed. Last week, for example, I visited on Saturday, Monday, Thursday and Sunday. On the Sunday she said "Oh, I wondered if you would come today, you haven't been for a couple of weeks, I was worried that you were ill". Grrr. If I WAS ill, heaven forbid.

Just do your best Natasha, you will never know if it was right.

Much love and smiles

Margaret

 

[Grannie G]

she said "Oh, I wondered if you would come today, you haven't been for a couple of weeks, I was worried that you were ill".
Margaret

Hello Margaret,

We visited my grandmother once weekly for years. Each time we went she said `Where have you been? I haven`t I haven`t seen you for ages.`

It`s just the memory loss Margaret.

One day a well meaning friend phoned. She`d been to see my grandmother who told her she never had visitors. I got a good telling off.

Love xx