andie73
10-05-08, 08:54
Hi
Those of you who have read my recent post about my friends mam will know the story but to quickly reinterate, my friends mam who is only in her early 60's is in hospital dying. She has liver failure, though she's not a drinker, and now all her organs are failing. They have withdrawn all treatment barr pain relief. She is a diabetic and they withdrew her insulin on tuesday evening, to basically speed things up for her. She decided on Thursday that she wanted to die at home so the hospital put plans into action to allow her to do that ie delivering a hospital bed to her home and arranging Macmillan nurses etc.
My friend rang me to tell me all this. She was as high as a kite. Absolutely over the moon that her mam was coming home. She talked about giving up her work to care for her and that her younger sister was returning to work on Monday and would return on weekends(she lives hr and half away).
I tried my best to gently say that she had to be mindful of the fact her mother might not live long enough to get home as due to weekend staffing levels they said they could not get her home till Monday. But it kind of went over her head, she was just so elated. I tried to tell her not to get too fixated on the neccessity to get her mam home and that the important thing was that she was not in pain and that she wasn't alone. But my comments missed the mark.
She rang me yesterday evening to say that the doctor had said that her sister should not return to work on Monday or make plans to do so as they had to be prepared that she would not survive the weekend.
I feel the this will indeed be the case and my anxiety levels are quite high as a result. I'm finding it very hard to think of anything else right now and my unsteady feelings and derealisation is wavering about, coming and going and basically freaking me out. To make matters worse I am on my own today and tomorrow as my husband is working. My father is on holiday, so I feel totally lost. That is making my anxiety far worse. I'm trying not to focus on it but it's not that easy!
I'm starting to feel the pangs of the health anxiety that I felt so strongly at christmas time and I'm finding it so hard to keep my intrusive thoughts at bay. I'd been doing so well lately. I can't help feeling that I do myself no favours at all when I get so involved with other peoples problems. But something compels me to do so. I know it's bad for me but always want to help even if it's detrimental to me. But then I also think well death and other problems are part of real life and I can't cocoon myself against stuff that's going to spark of anxiety. That's just avoidence and we all know that anxiety thrives on avoidance.
So any words of encouragement that I'm not sliding back into the depths of insanity, where I think I was at Christmas, would be really really appreciated.
Andrea xx:wacko:
Those of you who have read my recent post about my friends mam will know the story but to quickly reinterate, my friends mam who is only in her early 60's is in hospital dying. She has liver failure, though she's not a drinker, and now all her organs are failing. They have withdrawn all treatment barr pain relief. She is a diabetic and they withdrew her insulin on tuesday evening, to basically speed things up for her. She decided on Thursday that she wanted to die at home so the hospital put plans into action to allow her to do that ie delivering a hospital bed to her home and arranging Macmillan nurses etc.
My friend rang me to tell me all this. She was as high as a kite. Absolutely over the moon that her mam was coming home. She talked about giving up her work to care for her and that her younger sister was returning to work on Monday and would return on weekends(she lives hr and half away).
I tried my best to gently say that she had to be mindful of the fact her mother might not live long enough to get home as due to weekend staffing levels they said they could not get her home till Monday. But it kind of went over her head, she was just so elated. I tried to tell her not to get too fixated on the neccessity to get her mam home and that the important thing was that she was not in pain and that she wasn't alone. But my comments missed the mark.
She rang me yesterday evening to say that the doctor had said that her sister should not return to work on Monday or make plans to do so as they had to be prepared that she would not survive the weekend.
I feel the this will indeed be the case and my anxiety levels are quite high as a result. I'm finding it very hard to think of anything else right now and my unsteady feelings and derealisation is wavering about, coming and going and basically freaking me out. To make matters worse I am on my own today and tomorrow as my husband is working. My father is on holiday, so I feel totally lost. That is making my anxiety far worse. I'm trying not to focus on it but it's not that easy!
I'm starting to feel the pangs of the health anxiety that I felt so strongly at christmas time and I'm finding it so hard to keep my intrusive thoughts at bay. I'd been doing so well lately. I can't help feeling that I do myself no favours at all when I get so involved with other peoples problems. But something compels me to do so. I know it's bad for me but always want to help even if it's detrimental to me. But then I also think well death and other problems are part of real life and I can't cocoon myself against stuff that's going to spark of anxiety. That's just avoidence and we all know that anxiety thrives on avoidance.
So any words of encouragement that I'm not sliding back into the depths of insanity, where I think I was at Christmas, would be really really appreciated.
Andrea xx:wacko: