Nose amputation in progress

I am sad to tell you that my mother is still in hospital.

While she has got over the pneumonia, sepsis, bladder infection and blocked bowel she has deteriorated very badly over the 3 weeks she has been in hospital solely because she has refused to eat almost anything and hardly drinks more than a cup of water a day. On top of that she is refusing all medication and medical examinations.

Just minutes before my car broke down (see the previous post) I had been told that my mother had pulled out all her intravenous drips and screamed the place down in the process. Since then she has been obstructive at best and down right rude and rebellious at worst. Her mind does wander too so I feel sorry for my siblings and nephews and nieces who are visiting her regularly.

She denies that she is trying to kill herself and got quite upset when I told her that she was going to die very soon unless she changed her behaviour. But it didn’t make any difference.

Once again she has rebelled against ‘authority’. She hates being told what to do and when to do it and has therefore started a one-woman crusade against all authority including the doctors and nurses. Her attitude is “I’ll show ’em whose boss around here”, but she doesn’t see that any victory will be very pyrrhic and she will only truly have won when she dies!

Her non cooperation includes refusing almost all food and drink, all medicine, all medical examinations (blood pressure and the like) and also gets very with anyone who tries to encourage her to eat “Oh don’t go on!” is all she will say if you have the temerity to point out that she won’t get any better without food and water.

Last week the hospital decided that my mother wants to die and have withdrawn all but the basic services and are on a policy of “non intervention”. No medicine unless she requests it. Somehow despite all this, fortunately she has beaten the infection, so actually there is nothing medically wrong with her apart from being malnourished and now having a bed sore on her back.

Yesterday the fantastic "seniors home" we managed to not only find but persuade her to go into dropped a bombshell – my mother’s care needs are too great for them to cope with and so she cannot return there on discharge. They aren’t a nursing home, so it is understandable, if incredibly disappointing.

What next? Who knows! I’m right out of ideas right now.

I had plan “A” which was Sunrise, the "seniors home", and plan “B” which was her home which has been done up just in case she didn’t settle in Sunrise, but neither of those two plans work. So now we have to dream up plans “C”, “D” and “E”, but I am worried that we will need plan “F” for funeral soon.