Grandma

[howsmyenglish]

I realize that it's not very social of me to sit here quietly for a long time and then just show up to whine about problems, but there you are. I'm not very social as it is, and even less at the moment, and I do have problems that I just realized I need to communicate to the world, otherwise they'll just stay inside me and make me even more depressed than I already am.


So, Grandma... you might remember... she had a hip fracture, then an op, then a stroke. Then, she had to stay in a nursing home, because before all that she used to live alone... at an age of 93. She's 94 now, I visited her in the nursing home on Christmas (which is simultaneously her birthday), then I went back home.
Then... my wonderful brother and his wonderful partner took Grandma in. She lives with them now, it's been a week. It's a huge deal for everyone involved: Grandma, of course - not being at home is a huge deal for her, but after the nursing home all she feels is that her grandson rescued her, and it's wonderful that she feels this way. It's also a huge deal for my brother and his partner. Their whole life has been turned upside down. Grandma needs constant attention, they both work and are very introverted, so it must be unbelievably hard for them. Not to speak of all the new things they had to learn. It's a huge deal for Grandma's daughter (our mother's sister), who used to care for Grandma before. It's a huge deal for the young woman they found to sit with Grandma every weekday from 10 to 7.
And it's also a huge deal for me. But I don't even know why. Beside the fact that I now finally can regularly talk to her again (not that she's much of a talker now, but she has been improving this week) - it's a good thing, to be sure. I'm also completely and utterly depressed. I mean, I was before. I was depressed ever since this whole story started (and I only realized it a few weeks ago, which is, again, a good thing). I just spend an hour talking to my brother. He told me so many details about their new life. They're partly scary and disgusting, partly funny, partly nice, but as a result of this talk all I want is cry and smoke (I quit, because I didn't feel like it anymore). As if it's new to me that she's in such a condition. I mean, I was there, I saw her, I talked to the nurses, I witnessed her being "helped to the toilet" and even helped myself. It was over a month ago. Nothing of what he told me is new. I think I feel guilty? I'm not sure. It's like if I was there with her, I'd be sharing in the misery and would thus be a worthier person? But I was there on Christmas and I did not feel better, I felt worse. And I cannot be there now - not because I can't, but because my introverted relatives prefer there to be as little people around them as possible. And I get that. I'm introverted myself. So, basically, there's nothing I can do. I can help with money, and I just did. Didn't feel a thing. Only the need to smoke and write this down. So, there it is.
Sorry, everyone who read this stuff! But I think I warned you in the beginning. I've probably been quiet on DW, because I didn't want to write depressive stuff. But, you know. I think it'll help me, if I'll stop eating these feelings.

Comments

[altamira16]

End of life care is hard stuff, and it is normal to feel all the ways you are feeling about it.

My spouse's grandmother lived to 97 years old. She was having numerous mini-strokes in the last years. They did not seem to have long-lasting effects.

She was an artist who was getting macular degeneration in her 90s so it was sad as she lost her vision and could no longer paint.

Her colors became more vivid as she was losing her vision.

[howsmyenglish]

A year ago I still was asking for book recs for grandma. She's stopped reading half a year ago, because of fading eyesight. Reading was the one thing that she could enjoy in the last ten years or so.

[altamira16]

Originally, she bought some expensive device that would magnify the pages. Then she switched over the audiobooks, and I think that option was enjoyable and less expensive.

[howsmyenglish]

Yeah... we had a device, too. Audiobooks were tried for a very short period - her hearing is worse than her eyesight, plus... you know, audiobooks require a certain kind of concentration, and if one's not used to it, it's hard to acquire in old age. Anyhow. Thanks for sharing.

[draculard]

Ugh that's the worst. I was in the Navy when my grandpa had a stroke two years ago and couldn't come home to help out, and I felt just awful. It's a bizarre state where you simultaneously feel wretched because you aren't there for your grandparent and family ... and at the same time you feel almost sort of numb, like it's not real because you personally aren't there to see it. (At least, that's how it got to me).

Hope things start to look up for you.

[howsmyenglish]

Yeah, you describe what I feel quite accurately... Thanks.

[thewayne]

My dad is also a Christmas baby! That's a lot of changes for everyone, and that is definitely tough. One of the rougher aspects is that we're glimpsing a possible version of our own end, and that is jarring and we don't want to see that. I went through that some 25 years ago when my mother's mother passed away at home, it wasn't a lot of fun.

I hope things settle down for you and you start feeling better and less depressed.

[howsmyenglish]

How is your dad?

we're glimpsing a possible version of our own end
Yes, that's true. I didn't want to realize it, but definitely - this is one thing that terrifies me at the moment.

Thank you.

[thewayne]

Thank you for asking.  My dad is doing one week of in-office chemo a month, which currently consists of multiple injections, not an IV infusion.  Then a nurse comes by daily to the house and gives him a pill.  He handled the first week, last month, well.  The second week is next week.  Apparently if he starts getting sick from the injections, then he'll go to IV for the weekly.

With his last cancer and chemo treatment, it was a lot more conventional: radiation, IV chemo drugs.  And he handled that very well until late in the cycle and then he had some sickness.  He never lost his hair, the drugs are a lot more advanced than years ago.  Leukemia is treated with entirely different classes of drugs and techniques since there aren't solid tumors in the body, it's a bone marrow issue.  So we'll see how he continues to react.

[howsmyenglish]

Two friends of ours are going through this hell at the moment, too. I do hope they all get better. My regards to your dad. I wish him all the best.

[heartonsnow]

I went thro this with my dad so I understand how upsetting it is, remember it is perfectly normal to feel emotional pain, we all go thro it but I think it is wonderful that she can live with family and not in a care home.

[howsmyenglish]

I think it is wonderful that she can live with family
Yes, absolutely. I'm very happy my brother can be there for her. Amazingly, now she lives with him, he sounds much better than before. I mean, he's very tired, but much more relaxed now that he actually knows how she is.

[heartonsnow]

<3

[moth2fic]

I went through this with my mother. She insisted on staying in the care home because it was much nearer all her friends who could visit - I couldn't blame her for not wanting to move across the country to be with family but not know anyone else. And it was all hard - the time before she went into the home, when I drove across after work on a Friday to spend the weekend with her and supervise what the carers who visited her at home did, the time spent finding the right care home, the time and emotion involved in taking her on hospital appointments. It's all really emotionally draining, for all the reasons other commenters have already given. It's a bit like the amount of responsibility you take on when you have a child, except that in the normal course of events children grow up and become adults capable of looking after themselves. That isn't going to happen with someone in their nineties and I think knowing that death is the only next stage is upsetting enough. Be kind to yourself - and try to remember the happy times with her as well as being grateful to your brother.

On another note, audio books are not always suitable for older or less well listeners. They fall asleep listening and have then lost their 'place' in the story.

[howsmyenglish]

Thank you for this very thoughtful comment. I think I will come back and read it again at some point.