Terminal agitation. Any advice?

i'm not sure i'm in the right place to respond but here goes....i speak as an older person. the caregivers do need a break or several breaks, but do realize what the old people are going thru? not all of them, just some of them. they remember that they were young once, and they did everything themselves until the issues they have to face won't let them. they miss their independence. all of the caring parents will someday be old too. they (the old people) are afraid of death. they don't even know all this. it has helped me immensely to read the articles and see what the caregivers families go thru. as for me...i am 89 years old. i became old literally overnight because of a stroke in 2015. staying with one of my daughters (i have 3...one of them in new york.) none of the 3 are caregivers. when the time comes i will have to deal with a place to live. i know it won't be easy financially as i have social security and a small pension. i was once an artist, but the stroke gave me tremors and took care of that. i can only hope that i won't be a burden for them. not everyone can be a caregiver...look for options.

I’m so sorry for your loss. It’s awful to see our loved ones suffering. I’m glad that you are participating in counseling.

Wishing you peace as you heal and move forward.

Msblcb: I am so sorry for the loss of your mother. Those days can be extremely tough. Perhaps you'd want to schedule an appointment with a counselor short term; I did after my mother died, with whom I was living with and caring for out of state. Hugs and deepest condolences sent.
Personally, I may have driven myself crazy if I rehashed and rehashed the things I did right and the things I did wrong caring for my mother. I had to chose sanity.

Learning to compartmentalize our memories offers us opportunities to visit or not visit them. I have discovered things while visiting a memory that I thought I totally knew what happened, but came away with another perspective.

I think of my memories as thoughts in a shoebox that I can pull off the shelf to spend time visiting and then I can put them away.

Obviously, she wasn't getting enough medication. Thankfully, my mother was in a coma before she passed and I was so very grateful that she wasn't in pain or even conscious. I would not want your mother's doctor taking care of me or my mother.

I suggest you meet with a grief therapist and release the images and sounds of your mother's last day.....................rest in peace and acceptance. The Five Stages of Grief is a good topic to read up on. Learning to meditate can help you move along. I have done quite well on Mindfulness Meditation (guided).

I’m so sorry for your loss. My mom passed away at the end of November and I have been struggling daily with her loss and what feels like a lack of purpose in my life now. This post struck me because I too am constantly thinking of her last day. She was in the hospital for something routine, not a hospice setting. She called me in the morning in a panic and I came right away. She was so scared about the possibility of having surgery and I comforted her as much as I could, but then I had to leave to go to work. Just a few hours later she suffered a cardiac arrest. Thankfully I was able to make it to the hospital to be with her in her final hours and she was alert enough to hold my hand and let me kiss her forehead as she transitioned away. But I still see her scared, panicked little face from that morning and I feel so awful for not staying with her.

Please accept my condolences about your mom. Think of the good and not about that last day. I'm a person of faith too like you said too. So be comforted your mom is in heaven and I agree about she doesn't want you to be distressed.
Have peace.

We see terrible things at the end of life, whether it's on hospice or an accident or whatever. What has worked for me is letting those images play. In fact, I encouraged them to play out over and over and over until they lost their power. If a bad thought came up, I'd let it stay, roll around in it, so to speak, and not try to fight it. After a while (a year?), the images lost their hold on me. I think the term is desensitizing.

I'm so sorry for your loss.

Yes, it is only time, and the sad truth is that we never get over some of the images we see at the end of the long struggle of those we love. It is a painful thing that only loses some of its string with time, when the good memories begin to hold. I am certain it was a great relief for your Mom that you were there. Not all suffering is prevented in all cases, and it is beyond words how painful it is for the bystander who is helpless and desperate to help. When your mind goes "there" allow it, but follow the thought quickly with some lovely thought, some joy you remember of Mom. My heart goes out to you in your pain. Your Mom is at peace now, and in truth some of the struggle and suffering we see at the end is felt differently by the bystander than by the sufferer. I don't know how to explain that, but as someone who knows can tell you, HAVING cancer is different than "FEARING " cancer and what it must be like.
My best wishes to you and I am so very sorry for your loss and your pain, and so grateful you were with your Mom. This is very new. Give yourself some time and remember to remember the beauty and the joy.

I hear your pain and my heart breaks for you Msblcb. Losing our parents is an incredibly difficult thing and your mother was a huge part of your life,..for all of your life, so it's normal to feel the way you do.

Undoubtedly your mother wouldn't want you to feel tormented and I'm sure she wants you to find peace, just as she found peace after taking her last breath. I don't know any specifics about your mom's situation, what she was dying from or what she'd been like previously in order to comment on any of that or the agitation she experienced prior to death while on hospice. I've been told hospice provides a peaceful passing and I know that's what many on this forum have experienced, but apparently not all. I'm not in a position to be able to speak to this myself, but what I can do is express my deepest compassion for you.

I understand all too well about grief and the devastation of loss and I'm so sorry for the turmoil you are feeling. It's an awful place to be and I'm glad you're reaching out for help & advice.

I think Funkygrandma59's advice is good and I don't know if you're a person of faith or not, but if you are, perhaps you can pray for God to give you the internal peace you need and perhaps a vision of your mom at peace now. It may not be immediate, but I know God is able to do this for you if you ask and believe. For me, thinking about where my deceased family members are now and how I will see them again in God's presence has been helpful.

If faith is not your thing, or even if it is, an additional suggestion for you is to seek out and join a grief support group. When my brother tragically died at age 20, this is something my mom and I participated in and definitely found it most helpful to regularly meet with others who were all going through the same experience of losing an immediate familly member.

Group leaders taught ways to process what's happened and work through the different emotions which come along with the passing of someone so close. I recall many talking about their struggles with the last time they saw their loved one, or what was said or done just prior to their passing. The group offered a healthy way to work through these things, which sometimes does take time, but group support was extremely helpful and became more so as the weeks wore on.

In my area, it was the hospital who sponsored the grief support group program I was involved with,..although it wasn't the hospital itself who ran the program. Perhaps this is something you can inquire about.

My thoughts and prayers are with you.

Yes time and learning to replace the negative visions with more positive ones of your mom.
My husbands last 4 weeks of his life were horrific, as his pain and agitation were off the charts and hospice wasn't able to help with either, though I guess I can say they tried.
After my husband died I felt like I was suffering from PTSD, from all that I had seen and witnessed with him.
Thankfully 3 months later, my husband appeared to me while I was sleeping(yet I woke to actually see him)and he appeared much younger, healthy, tan, and best of all smiling at me. It was then that I knew he was ok, and now when the visuals of his last days try to creep in, I immediately replace it with the smiling face of him that came to visit me in the middle of the night.
So hang in there. This too shall pass.
God bless you.