just finished packing my things and have some time to kill and a lot on my mind so thought id put this out there. im going to be staying with a family member because they need to be taken care of and since no one wants to step up im doing it. i dont mind its just that i dont know how to deal with this. their health is declining fast and i feel like im watching them die. i love this person with all my heart and would gladly take a bullet for them but my hands are tied..im not sure what im asking..i dont think there is advice to dealing with this. i guess im just afraid of them being out of my life. the rock that protected me all my life is crumbling and i dont know what to do

There are four things someone who is dying needs to say:

1. Thank you
2. I love you
3. I am sorry
4. I forgive you

And you need to take care of yourself, while you help them, there are many good books, but the best would be a good friend to talk and talk to.

Just....................Love Them!!!!!

I have family and when my father had less than 6 months to live, I was there the last few months when everyone else was busy working. That was when his health declined extremely quickly and I think it helped a bond that needed repair. Just having your physical presence there will speaks volumes to their heart, and if you have to cry, run into the bathroom and make it fast, because the last thing they want to feel like is a "burden". I found myself sometimes wanting to shed a tear when I took care of my dad but I also felt like he was holding on because he was worried about us. I tried to be happy and positive and create laughter in time of sorrow and it was hard. Watch tv together. Or ask them to tell you a story about when they were little. That can be fun too. especially when they are on morphine.

There is a great poem about pets (I don't have it but it
has stayed with me a long time, the sentiment in it)
about the best gift you can give them, after a lifetime
of devotion, is to..just be there when they pass along.

Love in your eyes, hope in your heart, the gift is
returned when the last thing they see..is you.

It is hard, surely, but a right of passage, so with
people I would think it much the same, to carry that on
and someone else doing it for you when the time comes.

Full circle in a world that has death in it.
The older caring for the younger, then reversed and
the younger caring for the older.

I wish you peace :-)

Up until my recent situation, I have been primary caregiver for my Dad.
He has many issues but is not near death.
But what I have found is simple.

Listen....even when you might not want too
Respect their needs and wishes
Love them unconditionally
Hug them Often
and Just Be There!!!

It shows you care, and that means more to them than all the lil stuff you'll do for them physically!!!

First let me say stepping up is a very courageous and loving thing to do, good for you!...Caregiving is one of the most difficult things any of us will ever do, but it can also be one of life's most rewarding and fulfilling experiences!...Caring for someone you love is the ultimate way to give back especially when that person is someone who cared for you your whole life...You are not alone, millions of Americans care for aging loved ones...Sometimes caregiving can become overwhelming...The stress of the emotional experience and the time involved can take a toll....Finding resources and information is important, reaching out to friends and family members will help you cope, and making time for yourself is a must.....The love you express for this person tells me you are going to be fine, he or she is blessed to have you in their life....

i sort of think about death a little diff than most

I feel it as a joyous time

a time a loved one is welcome into Gods arms where all is right and good.............

then I am happy for them and I carry around all the beautiful memories of them

because I know I will see them again!

I agree with Souphie, just being there is the greatest gift you can give. If the person is able to talk, encourage them to talk about whatever they want to--serious or shallow, I think you'll find that afterwards, remembering those conversations will give you strength.

Best wishes.

I took care of my dad in a similar way.. he didn't want to leave his home so I left my husband & home to stay with him 5 of 7 days.. everything was tougher.. my work days increased by 4 hours (he lived much farther away than I did) I even ended up taking some time off just to spend more with him.. growing up he was my rock.. my mentor.. I adored and respected this man that adopted me into his life.. then took the time to teach me all the great things that are now part of WHO I am.. it killed me to watch his life just slowly fade away.. at first the anger I'd never seen before, frightened me.. but then I quickly came to understand that he was fighting against the inevitable.. I also realized I wasn't being myself any longer.. I was letting the fear of loss overcome me and it reflected in my demeanor towards him.. once that understanding dawned.. I was able to be myself again.. and his moods seem to brighten as well..

I believe I get how you feel right now.. but just remember who YOU are.. and be that person with them.. be patient.. attentive.. caring.. but whatever you do.. don't be condescending or overly protective.. there's nothing (in my experience) more annoying.. than the child trying to become the parent!

bottom line..? just hang in there.. and love them!

I was around basically two dying people, and this is what I found helped them ease the passage.

One was an old dad of a friend of a friend. His daughter hired me to take him on outings, out of the old folks home, for a three-hour stretch each week. We were a good match. He was an old Jew, I was a middle-aged Jew. He went through the holocaust, as a war slave, not in the camps. He told me a lot of things, and one amazed me, that he never was beaten or disciplined as a slave. It goes to show that when you are likeable, you are liked even in hell.

So. This guy and I struck up quite a good friendship. He thrived. I took him out for three years. I got paid, and he was happy, so was I.

Eventually all of a sudden he became morose, withdrawn. His daughter released me from this service. Two or three months later he died.

What he liked was, like others said, to talk about his past, and oftentimes, not every day, to resolve old issues. I advised him to make peace with an old friend who had been his business partner for a while, and cheated him out of money, and was dirty with him. My friend's father eventually gave in, and had a mild satisfaction out of forgiving this guy. You see, all sinners get close to us by being our friends first. It is hard to hate a friend, just as much as to be friendly with an enemy. When a friend betrays us, we have to do either the one, or the other, and can't do both, and will be forever unhappy about this sort of friend. The old man was satisfied, because he harboured ill will and anger for his old business partner for so long, that it was time to give the anger and resentment a break, and be happy about the friend he once had had and had lost. It is simply the change of pace of emotions about an important man in his life. Another reason is that positive feelings bounce around and help to creating (not cause to be created) more positive feelings.

So he became morose, died, in a few months. Sorry to say, but I don't think there was much that sustained him in his very last days. Maybe seeing his family, his offspring. Maybe. But facing death is a depressing, and terribly heavily oppressing feeling that can't be alleviated with false jokes and marry smiles. Let him be. Be there when he wants you, but don't expect to be able to cheer him up. In fact, excessive attempts at cheer may make him get angry. Eventually he will go into a complete solitudinous coocoon. Nothing you can do about it. Not saying this to depress you, but to prevent you from feeling guilty should you try and fail.

The other close death was my aunt's. She was nervous; her nerves alwasy got her angry and slash and anger around people who were dependent on her. I learned this from her, big time.

Anyhow, she was getting worse and worse; hard to take, coz you needed to build your ego shield to be stronger and stronger, and hard to take care of. She became incapacitated in her last few months, you had to change diapers on her.

She was also in great physical pain. Eventually my uncle took her down to the hospital where they immediately put her on morphine. She then slept for the rest of her life, only to come up to the surface occasionally. She died peacefully, coz it was forced on her. She lost her bodily functionalites, I don't know how to say this in English. She lost half her body weight, her own life-supporting biological systems went quickly one after another for the last week or two weeks of her life, in an accelerated rate.

i can talk about this coldly and not moved or impassioned, because I have this disability, which makes me uanble to grieve. My mom died when I was thirteen, I was near death emotionally, and some of my emotional systems just stayed dead, like death of any person does not affect me.

So... the lesson is, let them die, don't force the issue, don't get caught up in guilt, which you can only do if you're emotionally dead like I am. Do your best, play fair, and respect the competition, the opposing team (the angel of death and her allies: the scary and terrifying behaviour of the dying.)

Whatever your filosphophy, ie. is there an afterlife or not, use it to your advantage.

The death of a loved one is never actually the problem of the dying. It is the problem of the survivors, once the dearly departed has departed. (See the example of me and my Mom.) To wit, and to contrapose, my aunt used to say, "The only person who won't survive a very much loved one's death is the dead person himself." She was witty, that old wench. This is a class act quote, and she made it up herself.

My daddy had a funny one too, when he died. He had a massive heart attack, he was writhing in pain, my stepmom called the ambulance, they came, and as they put Dad on the stretcher, he said to my nearly hysterical step mom, reassuringly, "Erzsike, dear, don't fret; they are taking me to St. John's Hospital, and there they have the BEST coroners."

My psychiatrist at the time said, of this, that people joke and can be funny when near death, but it's only a sign of their extreme desparation and fear. He said that there were drums and horns playing at every public execution, becuase the executantes were screaming expletives at the rulers who ordered them to die, and were there to witness it. Everyone has to deal with the extreme fear and loathsome dispair when they are dying, and they do it many ways. Joking, screaming, praying, crying, whatever it takes. And this is to chase the demon of fear away; sometimes they are also in extreme physical pain.

Again, please forgive me, and everybody here I beg you to forgive me, but talking about the dying, death, and such things don't affect me at all emotionally, either way. I just look at it as if I watched a stone fall when I drop it, or birds circling in the sky, or waves on the shore. Does not do anything to me, and please don't condemn me for it. I paid for it, dearly, already, when Mom passed away.

I went through this with my grandmother. I was afraid to lose her. Myself and an aunt took care of her when she had cancer. I tried to make her happy. I did reach a point of burn out, at which point another aunt took my place. Please remembr to take care of yourself too!

Erm. I also stay away from threads of those who are about to pass on. This is for the same reason that I appear callous. I can't be truly and sincerely be sorry about anyone's death. Nothing , even when my psychiatrist died, or my best friend Paul committed suicide, I was in a state like George Constanza from Seinfeld, at the time when his bride died. George took the news, then after a very little while looked at his other friends, and said, "want to go for a coffee?"

I am very much that way. I can't show grief or sorrow, and I can't show comeraderie for the dying. Not because I don't want to; I simply can't. And this is not one emotion that one wants to fake. It is one emotion that one must respect to not attempt to fake and pretend to have.

I have never been in that position. All I can say is how I would want someone to be around me if I was that person someone had to take care of within my last days... I would want them to talk to me about anything the past ect... Keep my mind occupied by just sitting and talking. Laughter is one of the main things I would desire for others to help keep in my life.

When my Uncle was at the hospital and they were sitting up for hospice to take him home for his last days. I walked in to the room about 15 family members was there sitting waiting with him... It seemed so morbid to me like they were just staring waiting for him to take his last breath...

I stood there and looked around the room at them and thought that is not the way I want to go with everyone just looking at me in silence... So I did what I do best and started talking to him bringing up the past when we were kids. The funny stuff even times when he threaten to whoop our *****. It seemed to have gotten the ball rolling others joined in as well with stories. We had him laughing so hard. When I got ready to leave my step Aunt came over to me and hugged my neck. She said that she had not heard him laugh that hard and loud in a very long time...

Once they got him home the next day I walked in he was in a light coma... I walked up to him put my hand on his arm leaned down and whispered in his ear you just had to have the last word did't ya? He raised his hand and I grabbed it to hold it..My aunt said he had not responded to them before I got there... he went peacefully and I was happy to know even if only for a moment I did make a difference in his last moments..

It just shows that laughter does make things easier ....

Giving Hospice care is a different experience with each person I worked with to some degree. Regardless of a the reason the Patient is still a PERSON who is also and Individual.

It is not an easy thing for anyone involved and often there are a lot of people involved. Some times people that are least capable and the least genuinely careing toward the person who is considered terminal. But alwasy the person who is terminal. Something worth keeping in the front of your brain.

If you are not able to be submissive to this in many cases it is unlikely that you have the right stuff to be a good Primary Caregiver. That is why when children and spouse do hospice it is helpful to have at least a trusted hospice coach. Fortuneately in the USA there is a pretty good network of experience Hospice coaches available, that are paid for by medicare Anyone who has been given a terminal diagnosis is entitled to Hospice care until such time as they die or in some cases recover. It does actually happen. There services are available to the Patient and flow to the designated Primary Caregiver.

While it seems ridiculous to some to be so formal and get these free on line fill in the blanks forms and have them Notorized it is a essential tool you will be glad you have when you need it. And believe me you will.

A designated Caregiver DPOA usually requires a Durable Power of Attorney which is revocable up until the person voluntarily invokes it (most desireable usely when it is clear it is still voluntary but in the forseeable future needed - even if it doesn't seem like it is neded it is probably more important than the will because this insures care to the living and stuff is much less important.), his designated team invokes it (the most common usually a joint decison includeing and independent physician as well as the Primary doctor and maybe a Psychiatrist even a religious leader) , or when he becomes so impaired that they can not make decisions such as clear dementia, coma, inability to communicate (extreamly stressful for everyone and can delay needed care or start unwanted care which is difficult to get withdrawn), they die suddenly ( very rare now days), or the courts step in because there is gross neglect, abuse, or fraud proved or in some cases a legal challenge from a disgrunteled third party which is a disaster that should be avoided at all costs, or last but not least sadly the DPOA actually becomes incapacitated themself. (Which happens often if the Primary caregiver has health issues, is aged, or has other conflicts (why a back up should be selected). This DPOA power can be greater than spouseal rights, parental or even adult children's rights so it should be handled delicately and defintiely done earlier rather than later. Avoiding making this power unclear with in families is very poor plan and can result in tremendous drama even danger to the patient and DPOA Caregiver. One thing you never want to have to do but often happens when this information is unclear is the police get involved and that always goes ugly. Personally I think the last thing a Caregiver should have to deal with is trying to avoid arrest, or being thrown out of a crisis care situtuation because some person hasn't gotten their duckies in a row. But it happens if you don't refuse to work without this saftey net. I am not talking about paid caregiving which it rarely is.

It is important to note A person can be terminally ill and still have the legal power to institute or revoke a Power of Attorney. I personally would not step into being a Primary Caregiver unless this DPOA role was invoked or I clearly trusted that the person who held it was going to clearly let me do what needed to be done. It clearly is better for everyone if a family has a Pow Wow and knows what the roles are and boundries. Not everyone has to like it but it is a whole lot better if it doesn't come as a surprise.

Whenever I have done Family Hospice, which has been several times, I insisted that we have a meeting of the significant people involved in a neutral location with professionals present. A chaplain, greif counselor, family attorney, and if they will come the Primary Care physician, parents, all siblings, and if possible grandchildren and at least a couple of close friends and maybe even one trusted close neighbor . A recommend taking this meeting to a private dining room in a resturant, or a hospital conference room, or even your religious leaders conference area. It can be a little formal but you can soften it with coffee, food, even flowers asking everyone you want to honor it to still feel that they are important and supporting ANGEL TEAM Members. I even had T-shirts Screen printed and gave everyone and access code for a private communication site. Having notes, an agenda, and name tags helps everyone know who is who. Asking everyone to bring papter and pen to take their own notes is also helpful. Bringing cameras for family photos can be ok but ask people how they feel and expect people to be emotional. Maybe even Angry or jealous.

This ANGEL TEAM concept however helps families to know what is going on and less necessary to make every visitation about discussing medical stuff which is exhausting. The confidential site is a nice way to send prayers and encouragements and avoid rest periods or being overwhelmed by too many visitors on one day or hoving on top of a resting patient that is near death. It can be particularly helpful for the patient who can become very lost in irradic sleep schedules and know who has come by. For older patients or patients on many medications confuseion and short term memory loss is normal. This structure is particularly advantage because People tend to naturally take on small tasks they are capable of and follow routines. One person doing tasks when they can is as helpful as someone who will come in a pinch. It can make it much easier to assign special tasks too like getting things you need. Especially chores that a Caregiver that becomes bogged down in late hospice 24/7 care desperately needs like someone to unload the dishwasher or change the beds or water the lawn even gas the car or be taken to the airport when it is time to go home. Make it or break it help if even just an hour or so to have an uninterrupted bath or meal or take sometime alone outdoors. This radically reduces the patient stress of being a burden or constantly feeling they have to say thank you individually. These Team updates can have humor and even sadness at times. It is about being HUMAN.

Learning how to do hospice is kind of a seat of your pants experience. Everyone that attempts to do it is going to make mistakes and have tons of questions. But you don't have to go in being an expert to do a great job at it. Being flexible, honest, considerate is pretty much required but sometimes you have to be pretty tough, able to hide your feelings and needs, and just get it done.

One thing I would like to say is Terminal is a word that I prefer to dying because the dying term is kind of a misnomer. We are all dying just after our first breath. When a person get ill it accelerates the process and sometimes even cuts short normal ageing. But many non trauma deaths do look similiar to a natural ageing death towards the end on somewhat of an acelerated calendar. Rarely does the primary terminal diagnosis actually kill the patient. It is usually infection, a medical complication, sometimes and unexpected side effect, sometimes a self inflicted cause to some degree (they refuse to eat or drink or ingest/request more medication than their systems can tolerate), but usually it is a system shut down such as renal/bowel failure, inability to swallow, inability to breath. Usually there is dramatic fatigue and weight loss. Often in the last hours the patient just slows down until they stop.

The one thing that is generally true now is that a patient that requests comfort medication can be given enough to keep them comfortable. It usually comes in a combination of multiple medications administered in frequent small doses to help ease pain, dementia, depression, and breathing distress and be fairly lucid until very close to death. But it is also usually easy to administer orally or by IV so it isn't that arduous for the patient. They sleep a lot and usually eat less and less if at all the last 2-3 weeks of life prefering to drink very little if nothing the last 2-3 days. Rarely are they distressed or report any pain because of it. The body just doesn't need it and forceing it is actually more cruel because it causes painful coughing and digestive stress even vomiting or suffocation because the ability to swallow and breath easy is compromised by reflex failure and fatigue. Depending on the patient they are usually most comfortable with minimal clothing in a peaceful place with the people they want to see when they want to see them.

It is not unusual, being mean, or cruel, or even angry to say some goodbyes in stages. It takes and emotional toll on patients and some prefer to do it on their terms while they feel they have the control or appearance, or cognitive ability to express what needs to be said. Not every person has a need or desire to resolve every little BS issue or even say good bye to everyone. They sometimes even resent that. Especially if they feel they have made that decision or done that "job". Death bed resolutions and reunifications may be good Hollywood they are not great Hospice care.

the specific resources I would recommend for a Primary Caregiver would be Helen Kubler Ross Death and Dying, The 36 Hour Day, Caregiving for Dummies, and Eldercare for Dummies. There are also Disability/diagnosis specific materials that can be helpful but you don't have to become a Medical Expert to be a good Caregiver. You probably want to keep a log of what you do and things you note because the irradict nature of the schedule you will keep and the volume of information you will process between the team but you don't have to tell everyone everything and generally your Hospice support team professionals are good about breaking things down in laymans terms and asking what they need to know. If you have a basic understanding of First Aid which you can get in a short Red Cross training you can impart the information needed. Which is how much goes in, generally how much comes out, and basic physical symptoms like sleep, pain complaints, thirst, redness or swelling, fever, and breathing. This is obviously over simplified but your patient is going to eventually decide what they want you to know and need you to do and you really don't want to take that away from them.

thakyou everyone for your advice. its my grandfather he isnt on his deathbed or anything hes just sick. it might be his heart but i wont know untill he has some tests done so he might get better but ive always known my time was limited and thinking about that scared me to death. hes the only father ive ever known and noone in the world could have been a better father figure than he is. im not an emotional person and death isnt somthing that seems impossable to deal with. its only when it comes to him..just the thought of it always makes me break down in tears. its just that he was always my superman

I took care of my father until he died and the last few months were very physically difficult and time consuming. He needed 24 hour care I could not give. The last two weeks he was in a long term care center because I could not handle the job anymore. Having him in there was almost as stressful as taking care of him at home. He died on my birthday. Last night he was in my dreams for the first time since he died. It seemed very real, as if he was paying a visit. I am now living with and caring for my mom. I will really miss her when she dies, I'm not looking forward to that.

It is very hard to lose loved ones, but we are all mortal beings.