My mom died on April Fool's Day, her last joke on us, one of the caregivers said. It was not a pretty journey the last few months. I see the last post here about my mom was when she broke her back. She never really recovered. That cough turned out to be a sign that her body was shutting down. Along with the endless eczema, and the increasing dementia.
Because of the cough, the doctor had me give her some Mucinex, which turned out to be a bad idea since it caused her to have hallucinations and to be unable to eat. It was a couple days before I could get them to STOP. I thought she was gone then, but she sure was a strong one, she pulled through. The facility told me I was either going to have to move her to a different facility or put her on hospice. I chose hospice. They assured me they would not drug her.
Unfortunately they drugged her anyway. Instead of calling me, they gave her ativan and something I can't remember, which was on the list of problem drugs for her. Seems to me that "if only" I could have been there BEFORE they gave her stuff, it would have saved so much misery. They said it was NECESSARY to keep her safe. What it caused her was a lot of anger because they PROMISED her they wouldn't give her drugs. But they did.
So her last couple weeks were full of hallucinations and screaming. She got very combative and told everyone they were trying to poison her, that I was cheating on my husband, that the place was full of prostitutes and rapists. She beat up one of the construction guys and threw water on a caregiver. I was crying and pleading with them to stop the drugs. They finally stopped. By then she was getting weak, but as long as I was there, she was ok and they didn't drug her.. So I was there all the time from then on. But by that time she wouldn't eat, it became hard to swallow, and talk. She asked me how she could die.
There were those who said I was just "in denial" but I know those last days could have been much better. It's hard... to just let it go, knowing she's gone, and I couldn't really have done anything different. Her biggest fear was being drugged and I couldn't stop it. It just makes me sad.
We had planned on moving her to another section of the facility, so we had already started packing up. Crazy. She died in the morning, and we had her totally moved out by evening.
I'm still grieving.
