u/wwwangels

My watch is almost over. My mom is in home hospice, and I'm staying by her side 24/7. My mom is always asleep due to pain medications and because her body is starting to shut down. If she wakes up, it's only for about 1 minute. She has friends from church who are visiting a lot. I'm fine with that. But when they stay 1-2 hours, I start to worry that all their noise and chatter might be too much. I wonder if 30 min. time limits are best? I just don't know.

My mom is still alive, but we are in a death watch. The nurse went into my cabinet and started to collect my mom's hydrocodone bottle. She said since she wasn't using it, she was going to take it away. I told her she is still using it along with the morphine, and showed her the documented dose and time that I keep for my reference. Is this normal? This just doesn't sit right with me.

Edit: To be fair, she did have a bag with kitty litter in it. I understand now that that is one of the ways of disposing of meds, but the way she was going about it was way out of line. For all I know, she was going to dump it in the kitty litter and haul them away. Or maybe she would have put dish soap in it. Whatever the case may be, it was not the correct procedure.

TL;DR The end is agonizingly harder than I ever thought. If you can, try to make peace with your LO while they are still aware.

The relationship with my mom growing up was not always the best. She was physically abusive at times, overly critical, and cold-natured most of my life. But when she got Alzheimer's, she suddenly turned sweet and loving. However, it was hard for me to put aside my resentment. She has lived with us for 8 years, and I found myself being the parent she was to me. I was never physically abusive. That would be wrong on so many levels, and I am usually a nurturer, so aggression is not in my nature. Instead, I was not as loving as I should have been. I was too critical and business-like. I didn't give her the time or attention she craved, but she was always good about not complaining and being appreciative of everything I did for her.

Now that we are in the death watch, I feel like an absolute wretch. My nurturing nature is coming on full force, and I'm crying and hating myself for being so stingy with my love. I know I should give myself grace. We built her a house attached to ours, I cooked and cleaned for her, took her to all her doctor appointments, lived at the hospital with her during hospital stays, and was her medical advocate. But I kept an emotional distance. I told her I loved her often, but it wasn't as heartfelt as it should have been.

I'm doing Ho'oponopono, the ancient Hawaiian healing technique that includes four statements: I'm sorry, Please forgive me (I forgive you), I love you, and thank you. I just hope she can hear me.

Thanks for reading. I just have to unload this self-loathing.

I don't know anything about the rules of hospice other than the "6 months" rule. My mom has been in home hospice since December. She has Alzheimer's and weighs 77 pounds at 4'8. Her recertification is coming up, and I'm afraid they are going to release her because she's not declining fast enough.

Does anyone know if a stable low weight is enough to keep someone in hospice, or do they have to keep losing weight? She has constant, terrible pain from bad scoliosis. I can barely get her out of bed, let alone get her to a doctor's office. Just the thought of trying to get her to a pain management center for medications makes me feel exhausted and beaten down.