such a painful visit.

[Natashalou]

Mum had a good day today. Although it started badly as she hadnt been able to master her new wheelchair (she didnt have to it was bought for us to push her in ) and she thought she broke her CD player (she hadnt someone had switched it off at the socket), as the visit progressed she began to cheer up.
Somehow I feel maybe her end is very near. Her skin appears to have cleared and she looked 20 years younger, but she was saying desperatly she wanted to see "her boys" (these are my two sons) She appeared more lucid than she has been in months. Her aggression seemed to have abated almost completly and three hours really sped by.
She has a ground floor room and she could see the car park from her window as I left. Without thinking I lowered the roof of the car, intending to wave to her, forgetting this would simply show my degree of freedom and her imprisonment. She smiled and waved as I drove off, stopping just up the road eyes too full of tears to drive home.
I feel guilty for being young, being healthy able to drive away while she can barely walk and i wish I could give ten years of my own life to make the rest of hers easier.

 

[Skye]

I feel guilty for being young, being healthy able to drive away while she can barely walk and i wish I could give ten years of my own life to make the rest of hers easier.

Natashlou, you mustn't feel like that.

Your mum brought you up to be the person you are, and she has obviously done a good job.

She must be so proud of you, and you owe it to her to go on and live the life she envisioned for you.

I'm glad you had such a lovely day. I obviously can't tell if your mum is nearing the end of her life, but whether or not, days like these are to be treasured and stored in the memories.

Poignant, I know, but so lovely to hold.

Love,

 

[noelphobic]

I feel guilty for being young, being healthy able to drive away while she can barely walk and i wish I could give ten years of my own life to make the rest of hers easier.

And as a mother yourself, I am sure you know that is the last thing she would want you to feel.

Take care
Brenda

 

[Grannie G]

Dear Natasha,

You began your post `mum had a good day`. You ended it feeling guilty for being young and healthy.

Your mum was once young and healthy, probably when her mum was old and failing. Your children will be young and healthy when you`re old and failing. This is the cycle of life, the NORMAL cycle of life.

However sad you feel, however upsetting it is, please don`t feel guilty.

 

[connie]

Dear Natasha, please don't feel like that. I am in the middle of painful visits, and the realisation that my dear Lionel's world is rapidly getting smaller and smaller.

However, me feeling bad is not helping him. We have to stay strong, and positive.

Bruce posted me a few words of wisdom (well I have taken them to heart).

"Don't expect. Treat every day as a new day. If they have no past, they cannot be getting worse. They are as today". (Well that paraphrases it somehow)

I certainly intend to give it a try.

 

[sunny]

Painful visit

It really is painful! we all sympathise.The tears we shed. You have to go through it to understand it. Agree it is the natural cycle of life, but does it have to be so cruel?

 

[Natashalou]

advances

This view might not be popular here and I am very aware some people care for sufferers who are very young, but in some ways I think people simply live too long, too much is available to keep people going "come what may" for example the recent thread on peg feeding.
My Father did not have dementia but aged 70 he had a MASSIVE heart attack, was resuciatated several times and finally survived but with his heart working only at about 70% of its capacity.
The next two years were a living hell for him and all around him as his life was reduced to sitting in a chair. He could barely stumble a few steps. This was a man who was an ex paratrooper (my son has his green beret!) andwas going to be representing GB in the olympics as a power lifter, but the games were cancelled that time due to the war (im told)
Finally, he took matters into his own hands and shuffling into the garage attempted to drag on old iron framed sewing machine into the house. He staggered in, sat down and died.
We all wished he had been allowed to "go" two years before.
Im not saying my mother is yet at this stage but her quality of live is reducing daily (after our painful visit the next one was worse but this time coz she was so unhappy ) I hate to think she will be kept alive past the time which is right for her., being unable to express that view herself and the view of relatives being ignored.

 

[Grannie G]

Hi Natasha, I don`t think it`s a case of people living too long, but a question of their quality of life and how they feel about it.

I would like some changes in the law so we can make provision for our final years, should we wish to, but I can see how complex this type of legislation would be.

Because there will always be those who either do not wish to be helped on their way, or believe it is morally wrong, if such a law is made it could be open to mis-use.

I have already discussed with my son, how I feel and what I want from him, but I now witness my husband striving to get better, and trying to fight this condition, even though he often is so depressed he wishes he were dead, and he once felt just like I do.

 

[mocha]

Right to Die

I used to work at a Care Home until 1989 and we had a lady who used to sit in her chair chanting " I want to die--I want to die"
The Manager shocked me a bit when she said " Well ! Do you want to die now or after you have had your dinner"
When that ladies time came I have never seen anyone try to hold on to life more.
A lot of the time [not all] it is the carer who is suffering.

I will have to wait and see how I feel when the real suffering starts

Aileen

 

[noelphobic]

The Manager shocked me a bit when she said " Well ! Do you want to die now or after you have had your dinner"
Aileen

I had to smile at that Aileen

Brenda

 

[Lila13]

Reminds me of when next-door's auntie was threatening to jump out of window, my mother went round and said "go on then, jump!"

But when the support nurse told me to call her bluff (when my mother kept saying she was dying) I said I didn't think she was bluffing.

I kept trying to persuade her to make the effort to stay alive, it wasn't time yet.

[Why do people make those threats? and how does anyone know when it is genuine?]

 

[nicetotalk]

hi natasha

i agree with what you are saying, ive always said as i am sure many outhers have when i can no longer do anything myself eat wash clean smile laugh communicate to loved ones talk remember i would not want to live no way, what makes this illness worse is for loved ones seeing someone they love like this, i know its a fragile subject but what i have gone through what my mum went through i think it is cruel to want to see someone you love live any longer like that. I t may come across harsh but i can only go on what i went through with my mum. After watching her slowly die for 3 weeks in hospital no food no water i remember my words, i would not wish this on my worst enemy. Its a cruel cruel illness iknow there are other illness like cancer and that but our loved ones minds are gone. we want to help them but there is nothing we cando.

my mum passad away last march at the age of 62

 

[J@ne]

She smiled and waved as I drove off, stopping just up the road eyes too full of tears to drive home.
I feel guilty for being young, being healthy able to drive away while she can barely walk and i wish I could give ten years of my own life to make the rest of hers easier.

Me too. Every time I visit dad, and he's still at home so far. When I leave his eyes start to fill with tears. I feel guilty too for being young and healthy, and for resenting this disease and what it's going to bring on my dad and all of us. And for being able to watch him becoming so vulnerable and fragile, and for not caring enough, and for wishing he wasn't the way he is now, and for not being able to make it stop or go away.

Natashalou, you'll feel what you feel and feeling guilty is only evidence that you care, otherwise you'd drive off dry eyed with never a backward look, looking forward to the rest of your week. The disease is at fault - not you and not me. It eats away the people we love, stealing their memories and their personality, and it would eat away at us too if we let it.