My husband and I are taking care of mother who has congestive heart failure and work a full time job. We have basically moved in, but we do have a break on the weekends when my nephew comes over. However, we live out of bags, our house has gone to hell in a hand bag, we are tired all the time, my mother is miserable and has no quality of life. Does anyone else wish that the end would just come on? Let her have rest and peace. Let us have our lives back. Let us get some rest. I'm so tired and weary, all I do is cry. Please don't suggest professional help, I can't even go to the store after work because I have to get straight to her house.
I found that with my mom, when she had a stroke, we all went into crisis mode, thinking she was going to die.
She didn't.
We had to re-think our emergency stance and go into long term living with dementia and chf mode.
It sounds like mom's doctors habe recommended hospice. So have ours. It does not hiwever, mean that death is imminent.
To my mind, hospice and palliative care mean that nothing more curative can be done. You are agreeing to comfort care, i.e. treating symptoms that are uncomfortable and problematic, but not attempting to cure the underlying disease.
Would mom do well in assisted living or a nursing home so that you guys can go back to your lives?
Many people on the board here are in the same position. It can be like life gets frozen at this stress point that goes on for years now. Often I wish there were no such thing as these pills that eke out one more day of low-quality living.
Tell us a bit more about your mother. Would she be open to go into a respite program for a few weeks? Could she afford it?