Maybe near the end now

[kaizen]

It looks like I haven't posted here since just before the pandemic. My mother is now 105. In a way, things were easier during the pandemic, when no visiting was allowed at my mother's facility for long periods of time. Can't feel pressured or guilty about not visiting enough, if it's not even allowed. I did pop in here and read posts from time to time, when I needed to be reminded that I wasn't alone in all this.

In late summer, my mother had a fall in the night, presumably on the way to the bathroom. In the hospital, they discovered a raging UTI, with so much bacteria in the sample, they couldn't be counted. Everything has gone downhill since then. The hospital  was ready to release her, but her facility didn't want to take her back. She was by then weaker and needed more help than assisted living could provide, and there was no room in their skilled nursing area.

After a lot of discussion with multiple social workers, etc. I decided to arrange for 24 hour private aides to be with here in the ALF, which was only supposed to last a few weeks until she got some strength back. We also thought it would be good to get her back into familiar surroundings, rather than moving her to some other nursing home. But as it turned out, she never did comprehend that she was back in the room where she'd been living for five years. She still needs the aides. It is costing about $5,000 a week. Thank G-d she can afford it. The proceeds from the sale of her house in 2019 are now gone, and every month I have to check in with her broker to decide what investment to sell next. She's been on hospice for awhile now, which is a help in many ways, but they don't provide 24 hour care.

This all happened during the time I was awaiting cataract surgery, and unable to drive because of my vision. I also didn't want to catch Covid in her building and have my surgery postponed. So there was another long period where I really couldn't visit much. I talked to her on the phone every day. But for the last couple of weeks it's gotten to where she really can't deal with a phone call. The last time I tried, she was just saying Help Me over and over. The aide came on and said she was having a bad time; it turned out she was awake all that night, moaning, agitated, and unable to tell them what was wrong. They changed her medication after that to get her comfortable.

Now I'm driving again, and I can visit in person, but when I went yesterday she was sleeping deeply after getting her doses of morphine and xanax. Really no point in my being there. I had a nice visit with the aide. I didn't want to try and hold her hand or anything, because I didn't want to set her off on another agitated episode that the aides would be stuck dealing with.

When my grandmother was dying, my mother was at the nursing home with her for hours every day, even though my grandmother was blind, deaf and unconscious. When my father died, my mother wouldn't leave his hospital room until the undertaker arrived hours later. At various funerals, she would not leave the cemetery until the gravediggers came and started putting dirt onto the casket. This never seemed normal to me, but I don't have a feel for what normal is, either.

I feel like a cold fish not running down there today, on Thanksgiving. I don't know when or how often I should try to visit again. I have another medical issue going on now, and again, I don't want to catch anything at the facility and complicate what I need to be doing for myself. I feel kind of blank about the whole situation. I just don't know what I should be feeling, beyond relief that the nightly phone calls have ended.

[Srcyu]

Kaizen,
I understand the blankness, it's was what I felt when my mother died. I still feel that way quite a few years on.
I think it's acceptance.
We don't need to grieve or deny what's happening, which are two stages of the grieving process. I never did the searching stage either, though I most definitely did when my father died.

Presumably the lockdowns were a trail run for you and now your brain is ready to prioritise yourself.
If you feel there is no point in visiting on any particular day, then don't. Your relationship with her has not magically changed. There's nothing left really and your mind knows it,