Mom was put on Hospice care 3 years ago by her Cardiologist due to Severe Aortic Stenosis and she has lived with me since. She has been re certified without question every evaluation time. She has had UTI's , 2 TIA's and multiple falls. Almost 3 times a week her bowel movements consist of blood and mucus (but no visible stool). Hospice says she's a "walking time bomb" waiting to go off. The stress and anxiety of thinking this is her last day (for 3 years) has been hard enough. (I'd like to tell the Cardiologist he can take a turn caring for her now.) How does someone who is 90 years old, had type 2 diabetes for 20 years, high blood pressure AND now the Severe Aortic Stenosis survive so long?
I think it is time to plan for this caregiving to go on much longer than expected and figure out ways to make life easier. Going out to eat and going somewhere for vacation is so overrated. Virtual reality vacation is on the horizon. Thankfully my GP put me on Zoloft years ago - it really works.
Only Child posted earlier something that was so profound “neither of you has the quality of life you deserve”. We talk a lot about the quality of life of the elderly or disabled, but little attention is given to the quality of life of the person caring for them.
Yes, I believe that physical hard work in the past led people to drop dead earlier than nowadays. I think of my father and mother before they went into the nursing home. My parents were waited on 24/7 by us children, mainly due to extreme mobility issues. They could not take care of themselves and had very few ADL’s, but were as healthy as a horse, while we, some of us working full-time in addition to shifts at my parents, were breaking down mentally and physically. They ate, they slept, they watched TV, took medicine. No stress at all. I don’t resent that, and they couldn’t do any more, but it didn’t surprise me when the doctor said that my father would probably live to be 100.
I don’t understand medical science that says that sitting too much will put us in an early grave. My father has been sitting in a wheelchair for around 15 years with little movement except for his hands and arms, yet his organs are perfectly healthy!
I have a MIL who is soon to be 97. My husband and I have been looking after our parents since 2001. My mother died of pancreatic cancer. My father died of heart and dementia living in AL. His father died at home after many falls, transports to hospital(s), Rehab -- don't even want to go there. His mother became very inactive for almost 20 years. The old family home resulted in hoarding which my husband and I cleaned out. Four generations of sorting, pitching, giving away and auction. Depressed for sure as her husband was a narcissist. She is in an AL now. Dementia, inactive and the typical thyroid. She is very frail because she has not walked in quite some time. In fact Hospice has ordered in a lift due to concern of the aides breaking the bones around her implant for hip. MIL's organs are still going strong. My husband visits her 3 x's a week. He comes home exhausted. We do not do anything for ourselves....other than watch what is happening politically. Not good.
This post is very helpful to know others are in this circumstance. I am asking about your parents' activity to see if MIL can last until 100.
IMO, we have stopped "moving" (hard physical work) and started popping pills for everything (really-everything). If you've got a condition, they've got a pill for it.
Now, that's a good thing a lot of the time because, in reasonably healthy people, it INCREASES the quality of the active, normal life they have.
But, when the pills are SUSTAINING life, where the body depends on them to function, is where we run into trouble. Elders are kept "artificially" alive (they would die without the meds).
As the body further declines, MORE pills are required.
The reason people "dropped dead" in the old days was because their conditions got to the point of killing them. There were no medicines to "save them".
I've told the story of a friend of a friend who took a lot of meds. She was 84. Her doctor told her she would be blind within 18 months. That wasn't in her plan.
Since she couldn't stop the progression of the eye disease, she decided she would control her own destiny. She quit taking ALL of her medicines. She died 7 months later-with her sight, the way she wanted it.
That route is always an option.
The worst thing is we have no end date when things change and we can move on. We can't plan, we can't decide. There are threads here talk about their parent only had weeks to live, yet they're still here years later.
How many times have the words,"If I only had a crystal ball" on this forum? Those words have rung in my head many times. If I knew Mom had three months left or six, I'd stick it out and even work harder. If I knew she had two years of lingering left, I'd leave. I can't take going through this for another two years.
I can't tell you why she's survived so long but can tell you that you are NOT terrible for wanting it to end. Neither one of you has the quality of life you deserve.
I moved my 96 year old mother into assisted living less than a year ago, and before that I had been her caregiver. One month ago I got "the call" that she was unresponsive when they went into her room. While there was a bit of sadness, there was also relief and a huge weight lifted.
The people who know what I had been through for years all seem to understand why I didn't cry and mourn like some other people seemed to expect.
Don't be too hard on yourself. You are going through more than what most people would be able to handle. When the end does come, don't feel guilty about it if you feel relieved.
I am going to make a suggestion that would have sounded unthinkable for me: go to a therapist. When I finally got low enough to lick the floor, I went to a therapist and--WOW! They know what they are doing. He got me back on track!
Ask around. Find someone good. GO--don't think about it too much, just do it!
My point, I think, is that all the meds that doctors have now can keep a body going for a long, long time. In older days, people were even tougher! We think our parents' generation (often called The Greatest Generation) are tough -- and they are -- just imagine THEIR parents' generation! In New Mexico, where I live, my mother's Mom was a farmer's wife. They grew all their food (except peanut butter and oranges -- those were treats brought by the railroad to the army stationed around the state). They made everything from scratch - and saved everything usable. These were the people that made the floursack undies ("bloomers") Mom wore as a kid. THEY were tough!! But many of them died in their 60's, 70's - and older, of course, but they didn't have the medications of today which would have kept them going, I'm sure!
We need not wonder too much at how our parents continue to live on. Just examine their arsenal of drugs.
Now my Mom only takes the Armour Thyroid and the rest of her meds are herbal.
She is 92 and right now she is destroying my sleep, so I am on the hunt for a better sleep aid. I'm going to try Bach Flower Remedies....
I know how everyone feels - even though it's only been a year and a half since I've taken her on. Caregiving is harder than child-rearing, and I used to think THAT was both the hardest and the most important job in the world. And the most rewarding and the most fulfilling. Nope! For "hard" caregiving round the clock for an aging parent beats that. I took care of my Dad for seven years until he passed. Towards the end, I was metaphorically on all fours from the strain of bearing that up. And one day, an angel came for him and took him out of his misery and mine. He had dementia and was incontinent, but very, very sweet, nonetheless. It was a vast relief for both of us, I have no doubt. It took me a few years to regain my own strength and joie de vivre. I was sapped to the core.
I'm glad I only have two parents because I don't believe I could do this again, and in some ways, Mom is much harder. She is quite demanding and oblivious to the fact that she wakes me three to five times a night. I have been trying to keep my job and am down to three times a week, but I'm not sure....what'll happen there.
I just wanted to share my own frustration and pain because it helps me to read others' stories and realize that there are others who are dealing daily with the awesome responsibility - and some have it far worse - and somehow we can (remotely, through the internet) share our burdens by speaking about them. I wish you all the best!
No you are not a terrible person for wanting this to all end and there to be no more suffering. I am sure if you could just magicly make everything better you would without a seconds hesitation.
I feel the same guilt with caring for my mum hoping god would end her suffering but it is not because im a bad person it is because i know there is no cure or magic to make it all better and i love her and want my mums suffering to stop.
Stay strong and you wanting it to end is actually i believe LOVE. 💓
IMO, we owe it to our children to not be a burden to them to the point where we suck the life out of them. We should all plan how and at what stage of health (or lack there of) we want to go, so we don't linger on like a living dead.