How Your Voice and Words Can Affect a Loved One During the Death Process

Thank you Kay. You just made my day! If I can make it a little easier for someone else, I've done what I set out to do. I truly appreciate your feedback.

Carol

Connie, I've told you about my dad's experience on Haldol. It may work for some, but it was awful for him, as well.

Many people don't know that people often go on and off hospice care, so your note is of huge value to many others. This just shows that you will do much of what I have chosen to do  - help others from my own experiences. You will have much grief to go through, but you will also have much to share, should you choose to go in that direction.

Some of us can and should continue on with our sharing. Others can't and/or shouldn't. We all have our individual journeys. Mine has taken me, unexpectedly, in this direction of sharing my experiences with my seven elders, all of whom had different life and death experiences. I believe you will find yourself sharing all of the valuable knowledge you have gained, as well. Time will tell.

Blessings and strength to you during this very difficult time in your life. You will never fully lose your husband, but his physical suffering will, one day, end. When my dad's spirit was finally let lose from his miserable body, I immediately felt him with me - whole and free.

Take care of yourself the best you can. You are such a giving person, you can neglect your own health, but that isn't good for anyone.

Carol

I think more and more about what I am learning and how long I stayed indenial but I have accepted it now and it has made me stronger, I know it will get harder with each passing day but but talking has helped so much and sharing what is going on. I am taking better care of my self now because I know my job is not done. In my life with my heart attaks I have had two near death experience and have always thought I was just brought back for my family but now I feel that my life has more purpose then just being a wife,mother and grand mother. I have an associate dregree in business but I think someday I would like to go back to school and work towards something in the medical field. I am 56 but I still have a thirst for knowledge and think that its never to late to learn more. Maybe when I can I will go back to school, I don't think you ever get to old to learn more. i do want to help others even now, time is difficult to manage but I am finding ways. I have been able to sleep better this past week then I have in years, I don't constanly fear what I can't control, opening rays door has been a fear I have faced for years that I would open it and he would be gone. I love him very much and will miss him terribly but i know when he goes his pain and suffering will be over and he will be whole and happy again, I love him so much that I will be able to stop being selfish wanting to hang on to him and be able to see that he will be in a much better place. I know that may sound weird but I have accepted that is where we are heading, he is moving into a different stage of the disease, his lungs are getting more fluid from the congestive heart failure and it is a matter of time, I will love and care for him until his time comes but I am now able to pray for an end to his suffering and my acceptance of that. Yes I will grieve but I also know I will still be needed and will be able to go on. I hope to be able to say at least one thing that will give someone else comfort and help while they are going through what I am. thank you, you have helped me more then you will ever know. With this disease its easy to get tunnel vision and you have helped me see past that for that i wll forever be grateful, I don't live minute by minute any more I look to the future and want to make sure I take care of my self and health. I see an ortho surgeon on the 8th and will have my surgery, I need to get better for me and ray, my family and to be able to move forward. I will keep doing this, yes i know the days of depression may still strike but I have moved from the past and am working toward the future. There will be a future not sure what it holds yet but now know it will be there in some form or fashion helping others. Again thank you. I haven't contacted hospice yet but working on it. I've said I wouldn't put him in nursing home and i think hospice is the better option if possible. time will tell and I think in the next few days will be able to better see what stage he is moving into. I did learn one new thing He yelled and me two days ago and I told him that wasn't appropriate, I ask him to go to his room until he calmed down he did and stayed for 45 minutes, when he came back out he was the sweet loving man I have know, hes not a child but I am finding out that in some cases he has to be dealt with as one when he becomes angry and takes it out on me. I hope that will continue to work will let you know. I would never mistreat him and have no problem holding my temper, I was raise in a family that screaming was a constant and I always hated it, I learned at a very young age it accomplishes nothing and that is very true with this. If you don't have patience I don't think you can care for someone with Alzheimers because it is daily tested. I thank god now that I have been able to take what I learned as a child conquer it and put it to use in my life with my children and now with caring for the man I love. Like I said it is tested daily but I can handle it. I am ask how I have the patience i do but when you've lived it and learned to conquer it for 56 years it is fairly easier. I believe that we all have a concious choice to make growing up we can be a abusive person if we were raised that way or we can take what we saw and lived and decide to be a better person, I chose to use it to try to be a better wife mother and grandmother and greatgrandmother, still learning and still working on it but I like the person I am and am happy with my self. Again thank you and the people I have met on the alzheimers site have inspired me to work harder and to know to be a good caretaker I have to take care of myself can't fall to pieces. I still need help and still need advise and I am still learning but I hope you can see the changes in me and know that you have helped. Connie 

Connie, you are doing so much for others, right now, by sharing.

And no, it's not strange to "get" that letting him go is often best for the person dying. Many people hang on until they feel a sort of permission to die, when they are tired and ready to move on. They say half alive because the family doesn't want them to go. When we realize that someone will finally die anyway, helping them with the death process is what hosice is all about. Many come out of hospice care, as you've seen. That's a great moment. But no one needs to die in agony. Don't wait too long to get their help. They'll come into your home with what your husband needs.

And good for you for standing up for yourself and saying you won't be treated like that anymore. He took a time-out, and came back a loving husband, once more. This is so hard for both of you, but you are open to new learning, and that is wonderful.

Keep coming back and sharing your wisdom. We'll keep trying to help with our experience.

Carol

Your mom did know you were there. Some people wait until their loved ones leave and then die. I interviewed such a family in my book, "Minding Our Elders." It was so obvious to them, as they'd waited for days, and during a seeming "rally," they went to get something to eat. When they were all out of the room, the father died.

My sister missed our father's death by minutes, as she had to drive a distance, and he seemed to rally, so she started her drive home and intended to come back in the morning. I'd been the primary caregiver, and Dad and I had a mental bond throughout his dementia. She had no sooner gotten on the road, when he died in my arms. Who knows? She was his youngest daughter. Maybe he didn't think she could take it. Maybe it was by chance. We never really know.

Doctors will tell you that you can just run into the bathroom, and not "be with them" at the moment of death. But death is a process (in most cases), and you were with your mother as she died. You just missed the final moment.

Thanks for your kind words.

Blessings,

Carol