It's so scary! Mom has to have a scope run the 23rd but she's to the point where she can't eat very well which means she's getting weaker and also she's down in her back. I'm here on my own so I have no help All I can do is make sure I stay with her when she's getting up to go to the restroom. But my problem is I work 2nd shift and she's home alone. Do I just make her go ?? Guess its just scary watching her waste away In front of me. Feeling soooo guilty! Any suggestions?
Either way, she can not be left alone any more, unless you are willing to accept coming home to a deceased person.
what the tests are for
what treatment will be available for your mother following the tests
what the likely outcome would be.
Once you've thought about all of it, then rethink whether or not you agree that your mother should undergo this procedure. Quite apart from her being afraid that once she steps inside the hospital she'll never get out again, the tests themselves - I assume this is an endoscopy, is it? - are no fun.
But you also say she can't eat very well, and that she is getting weaker. In your place, I think I would call her main doctor and have a down to earth discussion about mother's options and prognosis. Are you able to take any compassionate leave from work?
Your mother's concerns are legitimate. My dad went into the hospital and never got out except to go to a nursing home. Not too long after, my mother needed a colonoscopy for suspected cancer but she knew that even she could get through the tests she couldn't withstand the surgery. She declined and I told her that I'd do whatever she wanted. I feel that our elders have the right to make their own decisions on these matters unless dementia is advanced. Mom still lived many years so I feel she made the right decision.
It doesn’t sound as if your mother should be left alone. If in-home care is not an option, I'd look into a nursing home where you can be with her for a time each day when you're not working. When people need to work, which is most of us, we often have to make very hard choices about how best to care for a loved one whose health is failing. Extended families close by aren't an option for many, and even if they are, they, too, must work. A trained "stranger" is better than nobody.
I’d talk with the doctor about how your mother would benefit from the procedure. If the doctor feels that a diagnosis could truly help your mother live a better and perhaps longer life, then talk calmly with her, explain the facts and try to convince her. Otherwise, I’d look at comfort care.
These decisions are very, very hard, I know. Keeping your mother's overall wishes in the forefront can help.
Take care of yourself, too,
Carol
Like everybody has said - you need to get several different kinds of help:
==help for your mom at home or placing her in a residential facility for this purpose. Best move I ever made for my mom!
==help for yourself to stop the guilt, anxiety, and burnout
==help for her physical and mental wellbeing. These resources can be a LOT easier to access from inside a nursing home or assisted facility. They usually come on site, so you don't have to take time off to do her doctor appointments.
Carol
An x-ray mom had about five years ago showed plueral effusion. Because mom had breast cancer on that side 35 years ago, the doctor wanted to do a biopsy on it to see if it was lung cancer. I was with her at the doctor's office. I helped her make the decision NOT to have the test. It's invasive, painful and, if it came back positive? A death sentence. Pardon the expression, but -- screw that. Five years ago.
Another story: my mom's significant other's brother is in a nursing home. He was having digestive issues that put him in the hospital. John, his brother, is his POA. They diagnosed a serious bowel problem and called John to get his permission to perform a colostomy. John refused the surgery on behalf of his brother.
That was a year ago. He hasn't been hospitalized for that problem since. My thought with doctors is, "If you're carrying around a hammer? You're looking around for nails."
I would never manipulate my mom into having a test unless a doctor told me that the results of the test itself could save her life and let her keep what little quality she has left.
Four months ago, mom was in the hospital, and they wanted to drain fluid from her lungs. I declined. Told them, if you can't manage it with medication, it's time for mom to go. Mom's problems right now, and the reason she's on hospice, are unrelated. Her lung sounds are okay.
Don't be like I was -- afraid of hospice. I canceled a visit from them three weeks ago and re-scheduled last week. YOU don't make the decision; the hospice team does. When they came to visit mom, her home doctor joined the hospice nurse; they interviewed her . . . they NEVER told her what hospice was all about because she has dementia . . . and THEY made the decision that's where she belonged.
Mom's life has been enhanced in the short time they've been in her life.