Sadly my lovely, fun, courageous mum passed away recently. Her symptoms worsened earlier this month, and she also seemed to throw in the towel. The fact she even survived her stroke was incredible, let alone fight her way through the repeated lung infections to rehab in her good spells. But, longer term rehab simply wasn’t to be.
I have a huge axe to grind about the massive gap and inconsistency in NHS support and care and seemingly biased attitudes towards older people. But this isn’t the time to moan (I’m saving that for another time and for the appropriate channels).
But thank you so much for all of your support and advice over the 18 months following mum’s stroke.
She’s now at peace, and hopefully enjoying her freedom and zooming around country lanes on her '60s scooter once again.
Sorry to hear of your mum’s passing. I hope that you are comforted by the fact she is at peace and with the more happier memories that you have of her. I love the image of her zooming round on her scooter. Sincere condolences. Norma.
I’m so sorry to read this, I’ve been following your mums story on here for a while. Your mum was a true fighter and I’m sure, like you say, she’ll be zooming round on her scooter now. I’m also sure your mum would have been proud of how you took up the fight on her behalf and I’d just like to offer my condolences to you and your family from myself and the whole team.
@EMG72 so sorry to hear of your mum’s passing. Sending condolences to you all. Your mum was a real fighter right to the end & I am sure she’ll be zooming along on her scooter as you say.
Hi EMG - I am so sorry your Mum did not get to go home. It has been nice sharing our journeys together and it is nice to know your Mum is now at peace and hopefully enjoying her freedom and zooming around country lanes in her '60s scooter.
With sincere condolences from us to you and your family.
Please look after yourselves - especially you and your brother who have been through a lot whilst looking after your Mum. Just as you are very proud of her, I know she will be even more prouder of you and your brother as she looks down on you.
@EMG72
I would like to add my heartfelt condolences to the others.
I also would like to say how lucky your mum was to have you in her corner, you did her proud and eased her way.
In time some of the more difficult memories will be pushed aside and the good ones will prevail.
Personally I always think that sorting through a few photos and picking out cheerful happy reminders to place where you can enjoy them helps.
Take care of yourself.
Ellie
This is an important post, and one which we all need to reflect on I think - regardless of our current situations.
As you know my mum sadly passed in July and her palliative care was practically non-existent. The hospital consultants were inconsistent and painfully disinterested unless I pushed and pushed and pushed for them to care for her. One of them actually tried to discharge her on the Thursday - she was gone by Saturday 6am. A palliative nurse only turned on the Friday! He said she was medically fit for discharge. I had noticed what I suspected to be signs of end of life in the week leading up to her passing. But as the so-called experts didn’t say anything and behaving as business as usual, I didn’t push for the palliative nurse to get involved. Either this was a deliberate move to prevent us from fighting for her, or because they are incompetent - this has been the recurring theme at Ipswich Hospital since mum had her stroke in early '24. Either way, it’s wholly unethical and unacceptable.
You know your beautiful mum inside out, as I did with my lovely mum. It was proven repeatedly to me that consultants, physios, etc don’t know it all. That’d be impossible, and so I always referred back to mum, her needs and her mood when we needed to review things. I truly believe my mum began to let go because she knew she had to go into a nursing home - not back to her beloved flat with the seaview that she loved so dearly.
(We also only found out the day before she passed that you can have neurological improvements and decline simultaneously - we didn’t know that. No one had told us that before including the stroke consultant. That would’ve possibly changed out approach to her care.)
Watch your mum closely as always, perhaps you’ll see a change at some point. Your mum’s a fighter, like mine. Had I seen mum put up her usual fight, I would’ve fought onwards with her - absolutely no doubt about that.
It’s so sad that people, like you, have to fight so hard to get the care that people need. As you say we know our loved ones the best & drs should really listen to what relatives and friends of patients say. I guess they are there to deal with the emergency and something the bit that means the most to us all is often forgotten. They have difficult choices to make too but of course we all rightly look out for those we love. Things shouldn’t be a battle especially as at the time you need support & help ànd aren’t in the best place to deal with those battles.
Our experiences have been unfortunate and I don’t think there is much we could have done differently. Sometimes we just end up banging our head against a brick wall. All we can do is the best we can and then hope or pray that things will work out.
At the end of the day, we can only try to respect the wishes of those we care for whether we may agree with them or not. We continue to fight on but there are times when we feel helpless and hopeless.
Sometimes we just have to accept that what will be will be - que sera sera!
