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Sorry for the bad title, I didn't know what to name this.
I'm writing this because my family has been in crisis mode for the last 2 months or so and I'm kind of a witness, being supportive and doing what I can and it's not much. But I don't know what to do. At this point I'm starting to get worried because the "crisis mode" shows no sign that it'll be over anytime soon.
To make a long story short, my mother's parents are sick... Last year we thought my grandpa was going to pass away because the doctors told us so, but apparently we got pretty damn lucky and he's still with us. Unfortunately, 2 months ago it got significantly worse, he got some treatments but basically cancer is everywhere at this point. Also my grandma has Alzheimer's and is deteriorating exceptionally quickly now that she's stressed out and grandpa is not doing well.
It's perfectly normal that it'd be hard for my mother, who's losing both her parents at once. She has 3 siblings and they've been essentially taking shifts taking care of their mother, going to the hospital almost daily with her, to see their father. He's not always nice (meds, brain cancer, etc), which takes its toll on all of them. My mom owns an enterprise and lately it has been difficult there too. Between work and her parents, she has essentially no time. She's essentially always running everywhere, and she keeps saying she's bad at everything, she keeps saying that she's lazy because she's always tired when she's absurdly overworked.
Now let me be clear, the time they all spend driving their mother around and visiting their father is absolutely massive. The three sisters probably spend 30-40 hours with her, each, every week. Those are excruciating hours in hospitals and grim places, dealing with sad halls and generally situations that are so sad they're exhausting. And it's probably more than 30-40 hours to be fair. For the last 3 days I've been trying to have dinner with my mother, she says yes, but then one of her siblings call to say they won't be able to go have dinner with grandma so my mom goes. And I go sometime, but it's always a heartbreaking dinner. The topic of conversation is always negative, it's always about what stupid insensitive thing one of her siblings did, grandpa's health, etc. The whole world is this grim, dark thing where every action is part of a pre-grandpa's death overarching logic.
But really my main worry in all this is my mother's health, both mental and physical. She's very forgetful and confused which makes her think she has Alzheimer's or some kind of problem, and although I think it can be attributed to the fact that she's understandably exhausted and probably in the middle of a legitimate burnout, she refuses to see a doctor about it. And with her schedule, it almost makes sense, she feels like she doesn't have time. She cries a lot, one time in front of her employees due to a dropped phone call. And sometimes she's absolutely uncontrollably hyper, like when she's in a hurry and she wants to get to the hospital quickly, she's so hyper it's literally scary, especially since she's going to drive... Her eyes are wide open like she's literally insane, and she talks quickly like where's my bag where are my keys WHERE ARE MY KEYS get out of my way MY KEYS. Shaky hands, tunnel vision... Can't stop her, can't tell her to calm down.
I know she's not crazy though, but she's overly emotional to a point where I think it's bad for her health and there's just nothing I can do about it, nothing at all. Telling her to take a break does nothing, she refuses to see a doctor, she refuses to slow down at all. She has told me something like "I feel like there's something breaking inside me".
So I don't know why I'm writing this, I'm pretty sure there's nothing more I can do so I'm not really asking for advice that I can't or won't follow anyway. I make food for her, I help her with her business's accountancy (which grandpa used to do), I clean up her house when I get a chance. I take what I can off her shoulders. And yet I can't support her much when she endeavors to spend all her free time (and some of her not-so-free time) taking care of her parents, frenetically getting from one place to another, seemingly fearing that she won't be there for her dad's last breath.
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TLADT24920 Posts
Honestly, it sounds to me like you're doing the best that you can aside from being directly involved with helping your grandparents. I mean, that's an option as well but I doubt any of them want you to help out in that manner. I think your mother is just going through a very difficult time as you mentioned. Her parents aren't doing well at all and it's weighing down on her heavily. Add in the job and having to be all over the place to help out and she's likely to burn out at this rate. She may be hyper but I think that's because she's trying so hard to keep up with everything. It's like when you know you need to do something but have no energy then you force yourself to do it and 2 months is quite a bit of time.
Her crying due to a missed phone call is likely attributed to her emotions running wild. It's commendable that she's trying her best to help everyone though I would be concerned about her burning out and if the worst comes to pass, falling into depression from it. Not saying that's the case though but I've heard of stories about that stuff before. I think you should continue your support as you've done so far and if they don't mind, maybe spend a bit more time helping out in caring for your grandparents if they allow you to (maybe instead of your mother for one day if possible).
It's definitely a rough situation for your family as a whole. For the grim conversations, the only option there is to try and steer the conversation into a nicer more positive subject. Maybe something good happened during the day and you can focus on talking about that. Make sure to validate what your grandmother was feeling though otherwise she'll feel that she is being neglected. I think writing this blog was also a good idea so that you don't keep your own emotions bottled up inside. Hoping that things get better for you guys. If you need to talk, feel free to pm me.
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I just had to commit my girlfriend to a mental hospital on thursday for mania. Turns out she's bipolar and she had her first manic episode. I couldn't even have a conversation with her. She wasn't understanding anything I said. Whenever I would start crying she would respond by laughing. I would ask her why she was laughing and she said she didn't know, and I would just cry more. It was terrible. I had to watch her get carried away on a stretcher to a mental hospital 2 hours away.
Everything was completely normal up until a week ago and she just slowly started to lose it. I watched her fade away from me. So I'm really messed up right now too.
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Is your grandfather basically in end of life, palliative care? I also have a grandparent with a neurological disease, not cancer, but basically bedridden and also nearing the end. Although luckily their spouse isn't in a similar life threatening condition currently, which unfortunately seems to be the case with your grandmother. When they/you go for visits, do you know what sort of conversations they have, if they are able to have any at all?
Particularly for your mother, I think at some point we just have to let go. Obviously it's much more difficult when the patient is in severe pain, and/or isn't ready to go yet themself. But it does no one any good to put one's own health in danger in an essentially incurable situation. Everyone has to die, barring some sort of enormous medical breakthroughs. You and I and everyone else reading this are already marching down that path. We have to come to terms with our own human mortality and make the best of the time that we have.
Small comfort, if any, I realize. Sorry to hear about your situation. Good luck.
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Im guessing the person with Alzheimer's is on a statin (cholesterol lowering) drug. Too bad ppl kill themselves by taking that crap.
User was warned for this post
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On July 21 2014 09:08 Descent wrote:
Is your grandfather basically in end of life, palliative care? I also have a grandparent with a neurological disease, not cancer, but basically bedridden and also nearing the end. Although luckily their spouse isn't in a similar life threatening condition currently, which unfortunately seems to be the case with your grandmother. When they/you go for visits, do you know what sort of conversations they have, if they are able to have any at all?
My grandfather is not in palliative care but he has metastasis in his brain and lungs, as well as pneumonia (which he's had countless time in his life as colds always degenerate and turns into pneumonia, for some reason that's how it is for him). He's had radiotherapy to blast some of the bigger tumors in his brain but there are plenty of smaller ones, they've found out recently. After radiotherapy he was himself (with mood swings) until he forgot how to talk 4 days ago, and apparently remembered later in the day. I visited him recently, always afraid he's going to have a bad day because apparently he can randomly snap and just criticize people very harshly (he told one of his daughters she was fat and useless and such). He has forgotten a lot of words, is generally confused, sometimes kind of forgets that his visitors are there after looking away and when he turns is head he's surprised to see us.
He's always been a profoundly nice and caring person and I'm really thankful that he's never been rude to me.
Particularly for your mother, I think at some point we just have to let go. Obviously it's much more difficult when the patient is in severe pain, and/or isn't ready to go yet themself. But it does no one any good to put one's own health in danger in an essentially incurable situation. Everyone has to die, barring some sort of enormous medical breakthroughs. You and I and everyone else reading this are already marching down that path. We have to come to terms with our own human mortality and make the best of the time that we have.
Small comfort, if any, I realize. Sorry to hear about your situation. Good luck.
I myself am generally fine with it... I feel like I've grieved for grandpa last year and I feel like every new day is a bonus. I'll be sad but I'm more worried for my mother.
As for coming to terms with mortality, small chance of that on her side. I think we're waiting for the last crisis... but it's not a story with an end... when grandpa passes, grandma will not take it so well, and the crisis will just enter a second phase.
I recognize that losing a loved one is hard for everyone, but I feel, and perhaps I'm wrong, that that part of my family is meshed together in such a weird way that everyone's making it harder on themselves than it needs to be. The Alzheimer's doesn't help... but yeah.... And if I were to say that to my family, they would probably not like it at all. Because they're not going to let go. My mother just today has said she doesn't think she can take it much longer...
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You seem to have your mind in the right place, but I think your mom needs to pause and consider what the end result is going to be. The chances of them getting all of the tumors does not sound good. For my own grandparent, I know that they're going to die, it's just a matter of when. A cure at this point is not going to happen, so I know it's just going to be a continued bodily degradation, perhaps with mental degradation as well. If your grandfather is not in palliative care, are they still trying to save/prolong his life? I think with my family, the consensus is more on comfort in remaining time (whether it be years, months, or just days) rather than an extension. So treatment at this point is mainly just for pain, and not to treat the root causes.
A key point is knowing what happens afterwards. Do your grandparents have their affairs in order? If there aren't any big unresolved financial questions, then that allows for everyone to think more clearly. At the end though, I'd rather come to a decent understanding and respect with my grandparents and see them go, than try to jump through every last hoop to see if they can live another 5 years or even 1. It doesn't really benefit anyone except the companies selling the treatment materials, particularly if they just prolong agony.
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He's not in palliative care now because they're still diagnosing the situation as the illness progresses. They had to decide whether to go for radiotherapy or not, they chose to (although my mom thought it was better to just let him go at this point). Tomorrow we're expecting to have an update on his situation from a doctor, and from there we'll know if radiotherapy failed, or what to expect basically. We're beyond saving his life though, metastases to the brain means basically it's the end of the line so the struggle is between prolonging his life and not doing it. He's been lucky enough not to feel any pain at all though, plenty of discomfort but no pain. As for the finances, everything's fine there.
Sadly I can't ask my mother to be reasonable in this situation 
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On July 21 2014 05:07 MichaelDonovan wrote:
I just had to commit my girlfriend to a mental hospital on thursday for mania. Turns out she's bipolar and she had her first manic episode. I couldn't even have a conversation with her. She wasn't understanding anything I said. Whenever I would start crying she would respond by laughing. I would ask her why she was laughing and she said she didn't know, and I would just cry more. It was terrible. I had to watch her get carried away on a stretcher to a mental hospital 2 hours away.
Everything was completely normal up until a week ago and she just slowly started to lose it. I watched her fade away from me. So I'm really messed up right now too.
Holy shit this sounds really rough.. best of luck man
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I am sure you understand what your mum is saying, she is trying to make everything good again.
But there are things that is not upto her and no matter how many hours she spent, it will always come one day.
She is "helping" to make herself feel better too.
At this point if she says anything about the pressure etc again, just tell her firmly that you will be there always and that she can do what she thinks is right because you will be with her to get through this till the end.
everyone has their own way of treating a situation like this, and they probably know deep inside they can't do anything to stop it but they feel like they should do something.
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The first week of her 3 weeks off was spent essentially entirely at the hospital and at her mother's. She's constantly, constantly with her mother and taking care of someone who's losing their autonomy is by no means cakewalk. She shows no sign of wanting to take a break, she's essentially working 12+ hours a day literally 7 days a week. She could leave her mother alone over dinner once in a while but she refuses to.
I don't see an end to it, it seems like my mother is now at this point where she intends to spend every minute of her free time with her mother until she dies, and she's not dying anytime soon. Will she fucking snap out of it? Will she realize that she can't do that? She'll make herself sick if she keeps doing that shit, and then I'll be the one who has to pick up the pieces and put myself in that same situation.
I understand that you have to take care of your parents but you need to do that to a reasonable extent. Now in 2 weeks she'll go back to work and she'll flip the fuck out when she realizes that she's even more tired than she was before and she has to do a marathon of 4.5 months of 50-60 hours a week at work and 40-60 hours with her parents.
At this point her schedule seems to be:
-Wake up in the morning, tired, have bit of a panic attack because life is falling apart
-Have other panic attacks over little irrelevant things because depression/burnout
-Drive over to mom's house, pick her up, deal with her health issues, get her to eat
-Drive over to the hospital, her mother asks the same questions over and over, she panics, gets sick
-Spend hours with grandpa and his moodswings and the occasional times when he forgets who everybody is, then comes back
-Goes back to her mother's place, same problems, have dinner, spends the evening with her while
-Goes back home, exhausted, goes right to sleep
(loop)
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EPT
