(no subject)
My mom is close to passing (probably not tomorrow, but the next few days). The fever continues, the appetite is gone, and she will only eat in a fit of delirium (and then she'll eat everything she can find, whether edible or not, and usually vomits). When I asked her this morning if I could get anything for her, she asked for a diet sierra mist. She never drinks diet, and she specifically requested it. There is a lot of mess, but that doesn't matter. We can clean it up. I have changed the sheets so many times that we can't keep the laundry going fast enough.
Hospice gave us so much help with how to administer mom's anti-psychotic meds that will help with the delusions and the angry moments (which in turns means she will actually let us help her rather than every sheet changing being a huge ordeal, and I will not go into the details for anyones sake).
I guess the thing that is really making me sad is going through and organizing her things and seeing how little she has kept, and how much of her last few months have been spent trying to ignore her illness. She is fighting the county in their estimate re: her property taxes, she had an appointment to see if she could get some of dad's social security (she thought she would get more that way, but the social security office told me she would have to be 10 years older, and dad would have to be dead and not have re-married), she kept no pictures. In her purse she only carried the her wallet, her food card, a letter to the DHS authorizing me as a third party on her insurance, and a piece of paper with the name of her oncologist and her dentist. I don't know why this made me so sad. The sum of her life isn't just what's in her purse or her house. Still, it just made me feel like she carried so much emptiness with her... I want to pour as much positivity in her last days as possible. Give her some small amount of joy.
I hate mental illness. I hate cancer. I don't know which I hate more - the illness that took her mind, or the illness that is taking her life.
Hospice gave us so much help with how to administer mom's anti-psychotic meds that will help with the delusions and the angry moments (which in turns means she will actually let us help her rather than every sheet changing being a huge ordeal, and I will not go into the details for anyones sake).
I guess the thing that is really making me sad is going through and organizing her things and seeing how little she has kept, and how much of her last few months have been spent trying to ignore her illness. She is fighting the county in their estimate re: her property taxes, she had an appointment to see if she could get some of dad's social security (she thought she would get more that way, but the social security office told me she would have to be 10 years older, and dad would have to be dead and not have re-married), she kept no pictures. In her purse she only carried the her wallet, her food card, a letter to the DHS authorizing me as a third party on her insurance, and a piece of paper with the name of her oncologist and her dentist. I don't know why this made me so sad. The sum of her life isn't just what's in her purse or her house. Still, it just made me feel like she carried so much emptiness with her... I want to pour as much positivity in her last days as possible. Give her some small amount of joy.
I hate mental illness. I hate cancer. I don't know which I hate more - the illness that took her mind, or the illness that is taking her life.