My mom is back from the hospital. I sent her a few weeks ago to the ER, she came home after a week with IV antibiotics. She is now done with them. She has barely drank any water, I'm afraid she's going to get another UTI. She says it makes her feel sick. I'm extremely stressed out. I just yelled at her to drink water, I paid $250 for her IV antibiotics. Money of which we do not even have in the first place. I feel highly stressed out.
On one hand I feel stressed out, on the other hand, this is her life, if she doesn't want to have water, then she doesn't. And I need to stop trying to control it. If she ends up in the hospital again, I'm not bringing her back home, she needs to go to a facility. They asked me if I wanted her to go to a NH, and I said no because of corona virus, but if it happens again I'm not going to stress myself out.
It's very nerveracking. I just cried over her not wanting to drink water. For one, when she gets UTIs she acts MEAN and crazy and it drives me nuts. Then she hums, which I wrote about before on here, you can read about it in my profile.
But you already know the answer: yes, you're right, if she doesn't want to drink, she doesn't want to drink. And, besides, you know what they say about leading horses to water, don't you?
I don't know if this might be a more consoling thought: there are plenty of ways of adding to a person's fluid intake besides jumping up and down and trying to force the requisite liters into her. Ice cream, watermelon, soup, tea, jello, squash or juice - it all counts. Does your mother have an appetite for *anything*?
I can’t drink straight water for very long so I drink Vitamin water which is flavored. I’d mom is diabetic get the sugar free kind.
Whichever fluids she like can be frozen in an ice cube tray and she can suck on those or you can crush the cubes with one of those things you pound meat with (drawing a blank as to the name of the kitchen tool) or a blender to make it easier for her to swallow.
I can really sense the stress and frustration you are feeling with the whole situation. Since I don't know your mom's age or health issues, it's a little bit harder to answer your questions but, I'll just go with what you wrote.
My mom is 95 with Alzheimer's - she does not drink water. In her case some of it was because she would forget even though I would buy small bottles, loosen the caps and put them in her refrigerator at the AL facility she lived in. I tried buying Gatorade as that had some flavor to it but, she only drank one bottle over a period of weeks. Nothing I tried worked. Finally, all I did whenever I called her or went to visit (before the pandemic) was gently encourage or suggest she drink it. I never forced her though. In April, she nearly died of severe dehydration and had contracted COVID. I had the facility call an ambulance and had her taken to ER. Further tests revealed she had bi-lateral pneumonia and a severe UTI.
As hard as it may be, try not to yell at your mom to drink water. This will only result in both of you getting more stressed and upset and doesn't resolve the problem. As for the humming, I'm assuming that it bothers you (for some reason I couldn't read your profile to get more details). My mom does something with her mouth that drives me crazy and believe me I took her to every type of doctor and dentist to have it checked out - they couldn't find anything. Maybe it's the Alzheimer's however, I noticed after she was given intravenous fluids for the dehydration in the hospital, it seemed to disappear so I suspect it's the lack of water that is causing her mouth problem.
It is not unusual for elderly people to get UTI's, multiple ones at that and yes, they act out and it differs from person to person. When my father-in-law got one, he was extremely confused and hallucinated, my mom would get agitated and your mom from what you say "acts mean".
Now, if your mom is near her end of life. Her not wanting water is part of the natural human process which is - the body is shutting down - they can't take in food or water. The organs are no longer functioning the way they should as when they were healthy. In other words, she's not doing it on purpose to aggravate you.
I give you credit for recognizing the fact that you are trying to control everything about the situation - we as caregivers often do that because we are scared of what lies ahead or what the outcome will be. And I suspect if we were honest, it's also because we don't want to have more problems to deal with so we are desperately trying to "prevent" anything further from happening. But when you look at it that way, we can see how unrealistic that is.
Letting go is extremely difficult and I'm sure there's "no one size fits all" answer. I'm still trying to prepare myself. We have to figure out how to "accept" the reality - that there will come a day when we will lose our moms (or other loved ones).
For me personally, I know that God has had my mom's life mapped out long before I ever entered the picture so I have to accept His plan and He knows best!
Unfortunately, there are no easy answers to the hand that has been dealt. We just have to muster up enough courage to face the things that come our way in the journey we call "life".
In the meantime, I hope you are doing at least "one" thing for yourself each day in order to handle the daily stressors no matter how small it may be. You can't afford to neglect yourself!
And I agree with "MACinCT" if your mom is qualified for hospice that would help you both tremendously. I had them for my dad when he was dying in 2004 and after my mom left the hospital and rehab, she declined to the point that she too qualified for hospice care in the new facility we moved her to so she could be in memory care. I couldn't do it without them!! I wish you and your mom nothing but the best and hope you will provide an update.