My mom has been in hospice for three and half weeks now. She has a neurological disorder that progressed quickly, failed a swallow test and came to hospice. Was asking for and tolerating some soft foods, then just thick liquid for about two weeks and not much. Mottling showed up on legs five days ago, and the last two days she’s been turning down the liquid, had only a few spoonfuls. Everything I read said people like this typically become almost comatose. We are experiencing the opposite, she is talking non stop. You can’t understand it and the things you can understand are nonsensical. And I mean non stop. I spend nights in the hospice with her and she talked in her sleep from 10:30pm - 6pm, after talking all afternoon and evening. I knew she was asleep at night though because I’d get up and check on her and say something and she wouldn’t respond. Then she was up at 7 and continued to talk to me another two and a half hours awake. I finally just left the room for awhile, even though I feel guilty about it I’m going crazy with the constant nonsense chatter.
Another lady had conversations with someone only she could see, she would actually pause as if listening to a reply before talking again.
Still another woman babbled constantly without any regard for whether anyone was listening, she just talked and talked and talked. She was the most problematic of the three because sometimes she would get p....ed off if nobody responded, even though you couldn't make heads or tails of what she was saying no matter how hard you tried. The broken mind is a disconcerting thing.
Her consciousness has collapsed, or is collapsing in on itself. She's experiencing something in her mind, and some of that is apparently leaking out through her vocalizations. I hope she's in a happy place.
The best you can do for her is keep her comfortable, and the best thing you can do for yourself is not to feel guilty. Think about the good times, and celebrate the life she's lived. Don't worry about the last sentences, of this last paragraph in her life. They hold some meaning for her.