Mom doesn’t qualify for Medicaid, but doesn’t have enough to pay for care. She has an advanced directive, absolutely no extra measures, including feeding. We are just waiting for her to die. I keep hoping she’ll get bored eventually and get back up. She is 89 and has some dementia. If this was a right to die state, she would have made that decision 6 months ago. She has extremely low bp when standing, has blacked out and broke her arm, requiring surgery and a horrific week in hospital. She says never again. I can’t stay forever, I moved to be near her 4 years ago and moved in with her 1+ years ago. My grown children are 2000 miles away so my life is just on hold. I have no idea what to do. I bring Mom 3 meals a day, she eats about 20% of what I give her, all foods she likes. She is skin and bones. Sleeps most of the time. Again, she is not unhappy, just done with life. How long can she live like this?
(also: passive aggressive to an expert degree)
I’m glad to hear it straight. Mom is strong, not sick! No organs ready to give out. I think I’ll be here for another decade 😳
If your mom is eating and drinking, even though she says she's ready to die, she isn't going to very quickly. Nobody knows for certain, people can live a long time on '20% of what you're feeding her'. It's more an issue when she stops drinking, or if eating is actually painful, as the digestive system shuts down.
Do call Hospice and get the information you need. My mom, too, talks all the time about wanting to die, and we just parrot the words "If that's what you want, mom, stop taking your insulin and all your other meds. At age 90, you don't need statins and BP meds or ANYTHING, if your choice is to die."
Of course, she is just playing the woe-is-me violin. If she were serious, she wouldn't be so 'perfect' in taking all her meds and such. As my sweet dad was actively dying and only taking morphine by mouth, she was still crushing his cholesterol meds into a fine powder and mixing them with juice and basically forcing them down his throat. Crazy.
Good Luck with this---so sad, I'm sorry you're struggling.
Actually, I would cut out Cholesterol Meds at this point. They have been proven to contribute to Dementia. A while back posters had commented seeing a difference in LOs after the where taken off.