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My best friend had stage 4 breast cancer & she was in total denial the whole time (except, I think this changed in her last couple of days, though she never came right out & said so). My friend had always been 110% hard core realist, so this was really hard to deal with. I was her primary caregiver & I decided to "let it be." I decided that it was not up to me to put anything in her face, as she was the one who was going through this. I've never regretted that decision.
My very best to you.
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No, everyone is different. I am 78 and in good health and OH SO READY. We all feel different about this. Some fight to the end. Admire her fighting spirit them. As a nurse I know that the one thing you NEVER NEVER take from a patient is hope. If she hopes to live do not insist to her that she cannot/that she will not. She doesn't want to go gently into that good night. She wants to fight. Admire her for it, encourage her, tell her she is doing great. There may come a time she tells you she is tired and she is ready. And there MAY NOT. This is our last decision, and one that should be all ours. We can hope to the end that there will be some miracle; or we can accept and ask for the good drugs. Let it be her decision no matter it is hard for her. Do not ever tell her to "go to the light". I know a friend whose bro died of AIDS in her arms. A nurse she had nursed him through to the last seconds, and when she told him "You can leave, Nick. Move to the light" he looked up at her with wild eyes and she told me she knew she had told him the wrong thing--for HIM--to hear. He looked at her like "What the H....? Am I DYING?????" and he was panicked.
Leave it to her. Let her do it her way.
And the very best for you. You are there for her in this passage; that is all you can do.
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7again Aug 2020
Thanks for writing this. I am bothered by the advice that recommends giving "permission" to one's loved ones to go ahead and die. As someone who has been in position of being the one in the bed (one of my surgeons told me later that I couldn't have been any closer to death without actually dying!), I disagree with that thinking.
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When my dad first decided on hospice care at home there was a brief honeymoon period when he was trying hard to convince himself and everyone else that he was going to get better. He was very persuasive. And then the symptoms he’d battled so long hit with a vengeance and all that quickly went away. Use hospice as your ally, have their social worker or chaplain discuss end of life with your mom. They can do it in a way that you can’t, and she’ll listen to them in a way she won’t with you. Tell her hospice nurse that her agitation is increasing, we used Haldol or Ativan for this with good success. The meds are there to calm and comfort and that’s exactly what they do. I wish you both peace
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Miamimom79 Aug 2020
Yes she is on haldol. She doesn't want the chaplain at all!
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I would talk with her doctor about the brain cancer and ask of that could be affecting her ability to see reality.

My sister never accepted that she was dying and continually said she was going to get better.

I am so sorry that your mom is dying and not able to accept it. It is hard.
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