Caregivers who have made it to the end stage are fitful, worn out creatures who shouldn’t be messed with.
The "dry run" I’m talking about when you think your loved one is going to pass away, and you call all the family, cry, say good-bye…and then they rally back to health.
You think you’d be relieved, but you’re exhausted, and if you’re like me, I felt a duped. Punked, like the new TV show calls it.
We had already called hospice which was extremely upsetting because it means you face that the end is near.
I could barely say the word, “hospice” at first.
Calling all my mother’s family was grueling–to say this again, and again–”I don’t think mother’s going to be here much longer.”
I cleaned her room, bought new curtains, made things simpler, gathered photos for her memorial service, prepared my kids.
Things got worse: she wasn’t eating and I sat by her bed and drizzled melted ice cream bars into her barely parted lips. My back ached. I grappled with the idea of a feeding tube and decided not to. She had stated on her living will not to, but it was excruciating to wonder if I had done the right thing. I wiped her face, stroking her tissue paper skin.
I stopped everything–going anywhere. Cooking–my daughters took over for me. Church–we all felt weighted and no one knew exactly what to do with ourselves. Everyone just sat on the couch…waiting. I lived off of strong coffee.
That lasted for about three days–and nights.
I wake the next morning, and she’s standing next to her little kitchen area.
She looks alert, asks, “What’s for breakfast?”
Now, see the whole picture before you judge my reaction:
My hair is matted to the back of my head from sleeping in the recliner next to her bed, I’m in rumpled clothes, and my mouth feels like I squeezed white glue in it. I haven’t seen the sun in days and I have no idea if my family is still in tact.
Breakfast!
I'm pretty sure I let a few curse words fly.
I was a bit miffed. Confused.
What day was it? Where was I? I scrambled eggs, made her a tray and took a shower.
Yes, I was angry, but it was good to be angry.
What do I mean by that?
Anger, ironically is a positive emotion.
You can only get angry at something you believe you can change.Apathy is when you’ve given up.
I didn’t want my mother to die, but I felt like someone had tied a rope onto my ankle and kept pushing me off a ledge over and over again. Caregiving had taken its toll. My emotions were strung so thin I had nothing left.
I hope letting you know that a “dry run” might be in your future will give you the heads up you need not to wear yourself slap out.
You never know what’s going to happen, but many people experience a “premonition,” an event that precedes the actual time of departure.
I believe it happens for a reason. It helps us get our thoughts and hearts aligned. It helps cushion the blow.
I actually walked around for a few days a bit ticked at her.
My life felt like I was walking into a room and knowing I went there to get something/do something but couldn’t think for the love of kittens what it was I wanted.
She toodled in her apartment (built onto our house), dozed, and we chatted. It’s hard to stay mad at someone who’s living on borrowed time and doesn’t know who the heck you are.
By then, she was referring to me as “little girl,” when she could find words at all.
What did I learn?
The will has more to do with life and death than a diagnosis.
A “dry run” is a lot like what you do when you're a little kid and you go in your mom or dad's closet and try on their shoes, coat and hat. You didn't know it, but you were practicing being grown. You were trying on your future.
And besides, it felt good to be mad. I can deal with mad. ~Carol D. O’Dell
Author of Mothering Mother: A Daughter’s Humorous and Heartbreaking Memoir
Available on Amazonwww.mothering-mother.com
www.kunati.com/mothering
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4 comments:
Carol, I am so glad you stopped by my blog and so in return I could find you! What a wonderful sense you have and what wonderful sense of humor. My care giving is not quite what your is...I took care of my maternal grandmother at my home for 4 years. It took me until long after her death to know what you already know! When the time came that I couldn't take care of her needs and had to move her to a nursing home, I felt such guilt. Still do to a point 13 years later. Now I am dealing with my Dad and am getting close to having to make major decisions where he is concerned. I try to remain patient, keep my sense of humor, but mostly try to remember to just love him.
I will so enjoy reading your posts and learning with you!
Carol, you are not alone. With my mother we went through that many times. I went through every emotion. My father who was by her side everday for at least 4 hours could not even stand to come to the nursing home she was in because he was beyond exhaustion. He had been by her side for 58 years, but experiencing this over and over in his 80's was too much physically and mentally. The exhaustion is so complete. I too know how valuable hospice is. It was like having someone else come and pick up the burden - I still feel that relief that we weren't alone and we weren't the only ones there to watch alone.
The volunteers are too valuable to know what they are worth. To have a stranger walk in and care enough to be at the bedside of someone they do not know is a gift. I experienced that with my mothers cousin also, I would have been alone with her, watching and waiting, if not for hospice.
God bless each one of them.
Boy, can I relate to this one! My hubby seems to hover at death's door - maybe not quite, but almost. He gets so tired, sleeps a lot and is very very frail. He has COPD and is in "end stage". Well, end stage can last for years.
It's when he has his exacerbations (extreme shortness of breath and sleeping all day, very weak) that I get upset, worried, don't sleep. And then - poof! He's back!!
And I feel angry - but it made no sense to me. I couldn't believe it!!
Why would I feel angry because Hubby didn't die, like I thought? I should be ecstatic! Well, that usually comes a bit later. First, it's the anger.
Thanks for clearing up that for me. I had been feeling sooooo guilty about it.
Wendy sent me over here after I described my dry run after dry run with my Mom. I actually flew my daughter Philadelphia to Denver three times over last summer for the 'dress rehearsals.
Two weeks before Mom actually died last month, the Hospice social worker called me to say basically while no one knows these things for sure, he believed she might die soon. She was talking more about dying in a wondering sort of way, no longer the I don't wanna die kind of thing. Then, 4 days before she died, when my son asked her how she was doing, she said "I've had it." And she had.
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