Fuck COVID for robbing family time, whether time apart trying to keep the vulnerable safe and/or premature death. Fuck it all.
Fuck COVID
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sorry to hear this Lucy. Jazzhands…
Update, so as not to derail the omicron thread…
The covid reduced her to profound senility, to the point where she couldn’t reliably answer questions like “are you having trouble breathing” (she said “no” when i could hear her struggling to breath) or “are you thirsty?” (she just looked confused, but sucked eagerly at a straw when we put it in her mouth.
It also triggered her mysthenia, which nearly killed her two decades ago but has been in remission since then. But covid is an inflammatory disease, and myasthenia is a disease of the inflammatory immune system, and the covid kicked it off. Because of the myasthenia, she lost the ability to walk or stand or feed herself. (the feeding herself might have been dementia, but the profound weakness in her large muscles was frighteningly familiar.) She also lost the ability to keep her lungs clear. So she developed pneumonia.
One of the last really cogent things she said, however, was to firmly shake her head, “no” when my brother asked if she wanted us to take her to the hospital. That was after she was in a great deal of pain. She made it clear a while ago that she didn’t want any extreme life-saving measures, and didn’t want to be hospitalized again. But it was comforting to have that confirmation of her wishes.
As i said in the other thread, yesterday was a nightmare. She was gasping for breath for hours. She was terrified, and every time we moved her she cried out in pain. (and sick people need to be moved to avoid bedsores, to be cleaned, to be propped up to eat, to be eased onto their side when sitting up is too hard… basically, all the time.) Fedex failed to deliver the “comfort pack” of drugs hospice had ordered, and eventually they put in prescriptions at local pharmacies for the ativan and morphine (the one with ativan didn’t have morphine…) and my BIL ran out to fetch them. But then it took hours to find a suitable level of pain relief.
Hospice is really concerned that they don’t prematurely kill a patient. At least, these hospice nurses were. I was shocked (in a good way) that today not only was her breathing slower, but her blood oxygen was actually up. (I mean, not at a healthy level or anything, but the drugs aren’t preventing her from breathing.)
On the other hand, she can no longer drink, so death will come pretty soon. It’s quite tricky to administer drugs to someone who can’t swallow even a teaspoon of fluid without choking.
I have been really impressed with the care the hospice people have offered. They sent a hospital bed, oxygen, drugs, supplies, and lots of hours of trained, compassionate care.
My mom had a terror of being helpless and alone. She used to beg hospitals to give her a room-mate, because she was frightened in the empty hospital room at night. So her kids are doing shifts being with her, including all night.
We are all vaxxed and boosted, and are probably reasonably safe, but my brother’s partner is immune compromised, (like my mom) and so he plans to quarantine for 10 days, and then test, before he goes home.
If you see me posting at 3AM, it’s because I pulled the wee-hour shift tonight.
(I’ll be curious to see if her death certificate lists covid, myasthenia, or just pneumonia. Or some combination of the three. Her time was coming, but I had hoped she might die quickly and with little pain from a heart attack, or stroke, or bleeding ulcer, or pulmonary embolism, or any of the many things that would have been less horrible than covid.)
Fuck COVID.
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that started as cold symptoms? what a nightmare.
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I know my words seem empty, but I am so, so sorry.
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So sad for you and your mother Lucy.
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Fuck, just fuck, Lucy I can’t even imagine what you’re going through right now.
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The combination of sadness, grief, frustration, anger … I can’t imagine Lucy - I’m so sorry 
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My anecdote w hospice was similar. The people doing it were great. (We had a brief period of hospice care for my mom way back.)
Sorry for how hard it is. Appreciate the updates.
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My mom died this evening.
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My deepest condolences to you and your family on your loss.
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I’m so sorry, Lucy.
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I am sorry Lucy. May she rest in peace.
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Fuck COVID.
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I’m so sorry.
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I’m so sorry Lucy. 
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I’m sorry for your loss Lucy
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I was talking with my cousin last night. Her father’s experience was very similar to my mother’s. He developed the sudden-onset severe dementia without having “a cold” first, and his was more extreme, because he has no dementia at all until he caught covid. And he didn’t recognize the straw.
He didn’t develop the profound muscular weakness that we thought was due to myasthenia, but he had the same pain on being touched that she had. Maybe that’s just a feature of dying slowly, and not specific to covid. I don’t know. But his final days were very similar to hers. Except he was hospitalized and family wasn’t allowed in the room until the very end.
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