The crazy
So this is the crazy shit going down in my family.
Up until today I’d been getting all the info through my parents, so this was the info: my aunt is suffering from dementia (she broke her hip and then refused to eat and then went into weird biochemical imbalances, not helped by an ulcer) and on the verge of death and not likely to recover. She can’t swallow for unknown reasons. All her life she’s expressed that she would rather be shot than in a nursing home (true) and all her papers say DNR, no feeding tubes, etc. My dad is her next-of (and only really) kin.
The hospital did put a nasal feeding tube in and were wondering about a permanent tube, since she can’t swallow. My aunt tried to take the nasal feeding tube out and has been restrained since (5 days).
All these decisions are really hard. And it’s been back and forth, back and forth. I’ve been trying to support my dad and my mum ’cause I know how hard this stuff is.
Of course my mother told me I “couldn’t possibly understand” where they are at. She did call up and apologize three days later when it apparently occured to her that in fact, I have made similar (if clearer) decisions about oh, my daughter. Still, that was particularly hard to take. I know that my parents don’t always have the capacity to remember that other people have pain and life experience, particularly their kids. But it is particularly shitty to have your own mother forget that you had to take your daughter off a ventilator two and a bit years ago. (Ok, really it’s just a “my pain is the worst ever” response but… still.)
Today though I was nearly driven around the bend ’cause I sat in on a conference call with the hospital.
Hospital: she’s sometimes confused but often not
My parents’ interpretation: they say she’s incompetent but then they say she’s not! Is she competent or not!
Hospital: she’s not progressing in physical therapy
My parents: she wants to die! let her die!
Hospital: she’s on ativan
My parents: they’re drugging her into submission!
Now all these things are hard. I can’t say what my parents should do, whether the hospital is minimizing things, what my aunt said about the feeding tube (supposedly she said she “wasn’t sure” which, you know, medical ppl sort of have to take as a yes, keep feeding me).
But watching them bend reality about a life and death decision is really fucking creepy.
So, now you have the scoop, and I have a record of more family bs.
I’m eating key lime sherbet.
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