MIL doesn't want to live

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I wonder if end of life is this awful everywhere, or worse in westernized countries?

I remember my mother’s live-in aide saying Africans were appalled by how we pay strangers to care for our parents in old age. I found this to be ironic, because her sister was raising her young children in Africa.

Her sister is not a stranger.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here: she has been to stay with us over the past five years and has been generally unhappy, crying to "go home" (to a home /life that doesn't exist anymore as someone here mentioned) but we thought "at least she is with family." Our thought was that she could spend six months out of the year here, use travel insurance, and still keep her doctors etc in UK. That was pre-covid. And even that was challenging because she has DVT, so we would have to buy her first class airfare or she would come by cruise ship. After a 2-year lock down and her stroke, her health has declined so much, she really can't travel.

She has lost a ton of weight over past 3 years, to those who suggested stopping eating is a good way to go, but she is also a tough cookie who has survived a horrible case of shingles that effected her scalp and eye, as well as nerve damage to her arm from falling down the stairs. Can you imagine nerve pain on top of everything else? I have so much empathy for her misery.

Agree with PP that we treat our pets more humanely at end of life.

I will ensure there is clarity in her medical directive around tube feeding and artificial support, thank you for that tip.

The next step I guess is AL in UK. We've been looking at facilities a few hours a way, in a town where she used to live and where her husband is buried. We thought that might be a good place for her last days but nurses are skeptical about her traveling there (by car/ ferry) and how long she will last.

I think it's time to ask some harder questions from the medical team. DH sort of pussyfoots around it and doesn't ask hard questions because he "doesn't want to know."

Thanks for all the comments. I guess I just really came here to vent/ mourn, because I'm not sure there is a good solution.

I'm so sorry, OP, what a heartbreaking situation. I think your plan for an AL in the UK in a city she has connections to makes the most sense, given her current state of health and the complications involved in international travel. It's definitely time to address the hard questions and make a clear medical plan, it's not the kind of thing you want to leave until the time of crisis. But I can understand why it's so hard for your husband to take that step. She's lucky to have a DIL like you who cares deeply.