he has been in and out of the hospital due to a abdomen surgery, which in turn he now has a colostomy bag, dehydration 3 times, and recently a blood infection. He is now home, and she insists on force feeding him to the point where I walked in on her tonight and she is screaming at him open your mouth god dammit. His leg raised up like in fear. My daughter and I do everything besides feed him. Mom is jumping down everyone's throat blaming everything on me.....She tells him you are going to walk again. He hasn't walked since Aug. 21, 2013. He now is showing the signs of pain and discomfort like he did with this last episode to the hospital. The last trip, last week, as my daughter and I were changing his brief, blood started squirting out of his rectum..I just don't know what to do anymore about her. She literally forces him to open his mouth and yells at him. She also is with holding is Haldol..How can someone do that to their spouse? How can she be so mean to the people (Family) that is helping her with him? I'm lost I don't know what to do anymore.......Laura
I suspect your mother needs help letting go Is she open to calling in Hospice? A good hospice service can help loved ones with anticipatory grief in preparation to letting go. The only thing about hospice is they provide only palliative care, so if she is still fighting for him to get better, she may not be open to their services.
I hope that you can step in as your father's advocate and let your mother know that the time is nearing for your father to cross over. She may not want to hear it, but not letting him go is torturing him, her, and the rest of the family. I hope you are able to guide her in the right direction to make it easier.
Your mom must be so scared...she will need a lot of support and right now it seems she is pushing everyone away. I hope you can empathize with that while at the same time protecting your dad from this type of situation. Have you and your mom (any other family?) had discussions about where she will live and what will happen once your dad passes? Another good reminder to all of us that we just cannot put off having these so very tough discussions.
You must have a lot of frightened feelings too....please be sure you are getting support for yourself. Please know that you have others here who care. Peace and good wishes to you and your parents.
I feel so sorry for your father. Is your mom willing to have someone visit her regularly and just talk and relax and they can very carefully give her Tips on caregiving? Don't make it so obvious that they think she's doing it Wrong. But tips to Improve? Father gets his back up when someone even Implies he's doing anything wrong. That just makes him more determined to do it. I have also seen a hospice caregiver very conversationally persuaded father to change his way of thinking of this one topic. And it worked! And there I was butting head with him over it. Sometimes, it takes an Outsider to help the parent see what we were trying to tell him.
My heart goes out to you and your dad and your children and grandchildren. The next time she goes off on you, I'll call 911 and have the firemen/EMTs deal with her craziness.
As for call 911, when they ask you what's your emergency, what are you going to say? Is this home your parents? Then they will show greater respect to your parents. Will they take your mom and deal with her? Most likely not - unless it's a real medical condition. Another poster tried that route - calling 911. They came, saw no medical reason to take her away from the home to the ER, and weren't going to take her at all. Hence, my saying to call the different programs in your area. Get to know it and the people. When the time comes, hopefully, they will help you. Remember - always be nice, respectful and friendly to them, and they will remember that of you.
Keep that recording in a very safe place. If I were you, I'd make duplicate copies. It will protect you from her accusing you or your daughter of abuse. I worry about your father. Sorry, it's not much of an advice, but the only one that I can come up with.