Today marks a week since my 91 year old grandma passed. I accept there were a lot of things I didn't do right for my grandma. I should have insisted her PCP or any other doctor to see her in person when I suspected something was wrong. I should have spent more time with her in the living room instead of in my room, bathe her more, take her out more, talk to her more.
My grandma was put on hospice bc the doctor saw a sick lady, one that bled easily and refused to open her eyes. But she still ate and drank. At home she tended to perk up once she was away from nurses and beeping sounds.
From the hospital she came home to hospice and she was fed dinner (eyes still closed but awake) on 2nd day of no dialysis it began: the swelling, the pain grunts, loud oxygen tank, gasps, morphine, excess sweating.
I was heart broken, feels like she was tortured until her last breath. I gave her morphine but I still think she was in pain and scared. The hospice nurse gave me a stronger morphine but I was scared to OD her. I thought "Just a few days before she was eating, drinking, and talking, she was awake and now she is dying because I am not taking her to dialysis and her sugar is crashing bc she isn't eating".
On the 5th day of hospice, in the early morning, with quiet gasps she took her last 3 breaths and passed. Just a few days ago I had asked her if she wished to die and she had answered "no".
I feel so guilty, day and night I recount the last few weeks, I go back 4-5 months ago, I think what I should had say or done differently. I cannot find peace.
What has your hospice experience been like?
You're looking at how your grandmother was a few weeks/months ago and assuming nothing had changed except hospice. Not true. A lot had happened, and decline comes fast in some people, especially in those like Grandma who had serious medical issues.
Even though dialysis helped her, eventually her kidneys couldn't take it anymore. Not eating for a few days doesn't kill anyone, so that's another sign that she was dying. The sweating is also normal for some people during the dying process.
I think you've been through a traumatic experience. I, too, was traumatized as I watched my dad die on hospice care and had to give him morphine and all the other meds. (The nurses told me morphine only stays in the system for about two hours, so you weren't going to OD her.) He died very peacefully, but leading up to that when it was just me caring for him was terrifying. The good thing is that the trauma of those last few days fades from your mind within a few weeks.
I completely get it, but remember, you did not cause her death. What you could not do was prevent her death. Nature took over.
It does none of us any good to rehash the should haves, could haves and would haves after our loved one dies. We all did the very best we could while caring for our loved ones and I'm hoping in time that you will come to peace with that fact.
Your grandmother would certainly not want you feeling any guilt or regret over anything now that she is gone. Instead I'm sure that she's looking down at you and just very grateful for the love and good care you gave her. I hope in time that you will be able to take comfort in that.
Give yourself time as grieving takes time. It's only been a week and your grief is still very fresh, but rest in the knowledge that your grandmother loved you and you her, and that she now no longer has to suffer. She is at peace and I know that she would want you to be as well. God bless you and keep you.
We all have regrets but you can't let them eat at you. That time is gone and believe me, we all have them. You did what you could for grandma. After a point, dialysis does not work. Its hard on the body. Your Gma was 91. She lived a long life.
For me, the best way to help with grief was trying not to think about the last 3 yrs of my Moms Dementia life, but to remember the good parts of her life. The times we went shopping together not the paranoid times when I was the baddie. Talking about her with my friends takes me back to those good times. She was a second Mom to them.