My mother was a complex woman and I had a difficult relationship with her. She didn’t know what was going on with me as a teenager and I was so self centred I didn’t have the interest in why she was as she was. That came later with therapy.
She phoned me one Saturday morning at 7.30 to say she didn’t feel well, could I come over and don’t tell anyone else. The last instruction was a bit tricky because I happened to have my sister and nephew staying and couldn’t really disappear without telling them where I was going. So the 3 of us made our way over and when we were there tried to convince ourselves that she had a virus. I called the doctor as soon as the surgery opened. The doctor came out and diagnosed a stroke.The rest of the ‘ill’ history is included in a previous post. This post (and hence ‘family beware’) is about her death.
About 3 weeks before my mother died she was struggling to eat and drink. The nurses in the home told me she had given up and I kept saying that I didn’t think she could swallow. They weren’t the slighest bit interested in what I had to say and I sort of took the view that they knew best.However my sister was up one weekend and we cornered one of the staff and insisted she got the doctor to see her on the monday.
Not knowing what time the doctor would come and see her, and not trusting the staff, I got there by 8.00am.I found my mother slumped in a chair and barely conscious. I asked the staff to put her to bed but they said they couldn’t until the doctor had been. ‘ what time will that be?’. ‘we don’t know’. About an hour later they came and lay her on her bed. Another hour went by and they came and put her to bed. Went I got there they asked me if I could wipe her mouth out regularly with a glycerine swab. And then a large cotton wool bud soaked in water. She would bite on that as if to get the moisture to her throat. I guess that i knew she was dying but was waiting for confirmation from the doctor.
He evntually turned up in the afternoon and I will never forget the look of horror on his face when he saw my mother. He did the ‘drinking test’ on her and said she had had another stroke and couldn’t swallow. A phyricc victory.
The doctor said that we needed to talk and I replied’tube feeding and drips?’ Whilst Iwas sure what the right decion was it was a lonely one to make. About a year previously I had asked my mother if she would want to be revived if needed and she said a very emphatic ‘no’. This combined with her telling me in the street that she had had enough was sufficient for me to be confident in my decision.
The doctor said he would put her on morphine ( I had the impression that he thought that should have happened a few days previously). He said that she was starving and dehydrating to death and the morphine would ease the way.
In between trying to find the Priest to conduct last rites I phoned around the family. The doctor had said that she would last 3-5 days and so everybody said they would be there later in the week. I think my brother’s wife put pressure on him because he phoned again to say he would be up the next day.
The Priest eventually turned up at midnight. Although brought up as a Catholic I am not a particularly religious person. My mother smiler as he came in – the last person she was to recognise.After the Last Rites were said the whole atmosphere in the room changed. It somehow became lighte.
My brother arrived at lunchtime the next day but didn’t come to the nursing home. I needed to get back here , firstly to cancel the holiday that I was supposed to be going on that day and secondly to pick my aunt up from the airport. I thought I left her in the capable hands of my brother but he wasn’t there when she died. I guess he had his own issues.
Recent Comments