If someone said it would be easy -- THEY lied-- the Agony & Defeat is hard to live with -- She asked that I share HER story! @agape_Senior

Photo from CUinsight

She told me to tell YOU her story to try and save someone else the AGONY and DEFEAT she felt as she felt like she had Let her mother down!

If someone told you it was going to be easy-- then well they LIED!!! A lady had the conversation with me at her kitchen table months ago when she told me NO to hospice.  She said I want my mama to stay home like I promised her.  I said I want you to keep your mother's promise and I would be more than happy to help you keep that promise to the best of YOUR ability, but I am not going to tell you it will be easy.  You see taking care of someone elderly in your home is almost like taking care of a newborn-- you have to be alert at all times!

The patients daughter was adamant that HOME was the only option.  I started to tell her about my grandmother and how we took care of her--and kept her same promise to her "keeping her at home" with hospice.  She said she was interviewing care givers, she was interviewing hospice options and she was talking to her family.  One thing she mentioned was that I was the only one willing to come out to the house before signing up for services. 

She said everyone said come to our office and we can talk.  She reminded them that wasn't an option because she is the only caregiver for her mother and she didn't feel comfortable leaving them her alone.
As we sat at the table we talked about what her mother was like prior to this end stage dementia, we talked about how she would cook at the very stove we were sitting in front of, she talked about the nicks in the walls and how many of them got there from her and her siblings bumping into the walls while tussling!!  We laughed, we even teared up for a little while.  I met her mother and she was a frail little lady maybe 90 lbs soaking wet, she was quiet in her tone and had a smile that would light up the room.

The purpose of the visit wasn't to put her on HOSPICE, but to educate her on what her days ahead may look like.  EDUCATE her on what could happen, what might happened and in the END what would happen.  You see I can't nor can anyone else predict the future, the death date or anything else, but what I can do is EDUCATE her on what she can look for and how to prepare for it. 

She told me how hard it had become trying to bathe her, how hard it had become to try to feed her and the hardest thing was trying to decide when to take her to the ER or when she should just stay home.  I educated her on a 24:7 nurse being on call, a daily C.N.A. coming in to help with bathing and meal time--

I checked back in on her-- and she continued to say that she wasn't ready "just yet"-- the last time I touched base she let me know that her mother had died in a sterile hospital ER and that the death was not a quiet, comfortable death-- it was quite traumatic for her to watch and she felt horrible that she had not chosen to hospice. 
She told me to tell YOU her story to try and save someone else the AGONY and DEFEAT she felt as she felt like she had Let her mother down!