• lasagna@programming.dev
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    1 year ago

    Rather than losing my loved ones, I think I’d be more scared of losing my love for them. Either via a cold heart or dementia.

    • bob_wiley@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      When you put it like that, yeah, that’s how it’s going. My mom visits often (she has been told that my grandma gets more visits than most, and most don’t get any at all). However, because her mom either doesn’t remember, or doesn’t understand that everyone is trying to help and doing the best they can, she gets upset. She’ll often say how she doesn’t want to live where she’s at and asks why she can’t live with one of them. If people tell her something she doesn’t want to hear, she’ll hang up on them. She says she wants to go home, though I’m not sure where she thinks that is. Her sister took her in for a year or two, but it was too much. She ended up leaving in an ambulance after falling on her 100th birthday. Recently she told my sister she was happy when living at her house, which hurt to hear, but was also not entirely true. I think it’s been hard for everyone, but hardest on my mom… and my sister when she was living there.

      I don’t think her heart is cold, it’s more the dementia stealing all the good times, hurting her ability to understand what’s going on, and her hearing making it difficult to communicate.

      I want her to live forever, but if I’m being really honest, I think everyone will feel a weight off their shoulders when she does pass. We thought it was going to happen a few years ago after a bad fall. We were all at the hospital basically waiting for her to die, as she had a fractured spine and internal bleeding, but no one told her and she wanted to walk again and go home… and that’s exactly what she did. She’s tough as nails and I think she’s too stubborn to die, lol. It’s pretty crazy that a 102 year old lady who’s probably not even 5 feet tall and under 100lbs is the strongest person I’ve known, but it’s true.

    • WarmSoda@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      Dementia scares me too. I’ve seen it with two people now. It’s like they’re living in dreams all the time. Turn a corner or something changes and it’s a whole different scenario and you don’t know what’s going on.

      I get night terrors. Some dreams seriously feel like they last for days and it’s next to impossible to wake up. Living like that 24/7 at the end of my life sounds horrifying.