# Please help me make sense of this



## NickyT (Aug 14, 2017)

This is about grieving after a death. I am telling you the history because I think it is relevant to the mindset of my MIL and the family.

My father in law died Saturday. He was 86. He had congestive heart failure, had a heart attack in his 50's and had both an internal pacemaker and a defibrillator. He had stage 3 liver cancer - the tumor was 10 cm which is huge. When he was diagnosed in last May, he had no symptoms. The cancer was discovered by accident when diagnosing something unrelated. He and my MIL decided he would undergo chemo and radiation. The chemo was tough. He could not make it through the full course of radiation and stopped about 2/3 of the way through. 

By Christmas he was very weak, showing clear signs of jaundice and general deterioration. He was using a walker. 

Immediately after Christmas, both he and my MIL got bad colds. Shortly after the New Year, they were both in the hospital with pneumonia. Both seemed to recover and went to rehab. A few days later, FIL relapsed and went back into the hospital. That was the beginning of the end.

My husband and I live 3 hours from them. My husband's one brother lives 45 minutes away, but works a couple of miles from both the hospital and my in law's home.

During the 3 weeks preceding my FIL death, my MIL would call my husband at work sobbing. She could not live without her husband. I will call him Ed. She didn't think she wanted to live. Rehab center is alarmed at these comments. My husband and I would drive up, sleep in FIL's hospital room and bring MIL to and from the hospital. She was still recovering from pneumonia. We would go home, delirious from days without real sleep, sleep in our own bed for a night, then the next morning she would call, sobbing, saying they decided to put him on hospice. (FIL was not expected to survive more than a day on hospice - his heart was continuing to fail with the pacemaker working almost constantly, very high doses of oxygen, high doses of antibiotics, etc). We drive the 3 hours to find that they had decided they would not remove extreme measures - the defibrillator stays on, do cpr, intubate if necessary. This is not hospice. We stay 2 more days and again return home delirious. (Husband has a job....trying to work from the hospital)

This happened 4 times. MIL is in pieces, calling us frantic saying he is about to die. We get there and he is on the same supports he was on when we left and clearly holding his own. Awake, alert, lucid, vitals stable.

We are thinking we will bring her back to our place after the death and making all kinds of contingency plans because there is little chance she can manage alone. She would walk across the room and start to sob. 

But, in all of this, I saw some strange things. She would become very agitated that the death process was taking so long (even though she would not encourage Ed to enter hospice.) She would say that she herself had to recover and she could not spend all day with Ed. She did, though. He was very scared to die. She did not tell him it would be ok. She did not comfort him. She said it was all his decision.

She also talked about where she would move when he died. She talked about how she would be ok. That was tough to see. In general, she was a hot mess. She insisted that if he would start to pass while she was not there they take extreme measure so she could get there before he actually passed. This included keeping the defibrillator on - this would continually shock him as he died.

Still, she sobbed at how he was her rock and she could not live without him.

Then he died. She was not there. 

We were on our way when we got the news. When we got there, she was weak but ok. That was Saturday. On Sunday we met with the funeral home and the funeral was set for 2 weeks later so she would have time to fully recover from the lingering weakness from the pneumonia.

By Monday, she had kicked everyone out of her house. She met alone with the minister and planned the funeral. She call social security to ensure she got the death benefit and got her monthly benefit increased to reflect what she was owed from her deceased spouse. She called and got his life insurance policy. She is off her oxygen except for at night (contact the vatican, we have a miracle)

By the end of Tuesday, she had planned the reception after the funeral and made all those arrangements. She does not cry. She says she is fine and she gets irritated when my husband asks. She is planning when she will have the first meeting of her book club.

What are your thoughts? I realize people grieve differently, and I speculated that she grieved before the actual death. It is utterly incongruous to what she said before he died. She treated him with little compassion, though she did her duty and stayed at his side. I am sure she is relieved that he is not suffering (he never did at the end), and that the weight of caring for a sick person is relieved. But...my husband and I feel this is very, very strange.

Thanks.


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## peacem (Oct 25, 2014)

My own mother was very sick with pneumonia and something that I will never forget is her personality change throughout the whole of the infection. She is a very sweet, almost waifish type but whilst she was ill it was like dealing with someone with dementia - her personality and thought processes were all over the place (anger, paranoia, accusatory, depression to euphoria). It took many weeks if not months for her to slowly get back to the person we knew. We talked to the nurse in the hospital and she said it was the infection. 

What is the relevance of your BIL living nearer (confused) and what does he think?


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## Emerging Buddhist (Apr 7, 2016)

People buffer themselves from suffering in many ways... try not to be too hard on her or try to inject your sense into her handling of the finality of the loss both of them were going through.

She is doing the best she can, offer her your love and compassionate understanding so she knows she isn't alone as she walks this painful landscape and comes to terms with that which is... a life without her husband.


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## SunCMars (Feb 29, 2016)

His burden was her burden. She went through the motions.
She knew she was being watched, wanted to do the death spiral 'properly'.

Was there love at the end or was it mere duty?
I think a little of both.

I think throughout there was some love and a lot of show.
This theory proved out in the end.

It is very hard work caring for a chronically ill spouse, a lot of work that goes unseen, until you go through it.

My 86 year old lady neighbor/friend is going through the same thing with her hospice placed husband. The love between the two had leveled off a number of years ago.
Her children expect her to act a certain way, to feel a certain way and she does. 

All in all, she is overloaded. Normally, she is/was loud and vivacious, now she is more subdued, plainly burned out.


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## SunCMars (Feb 29, 2016)

peacem said:


> My own mother was very sick with pneumonia and something that I will never forget is her personality change throughout the whole of the infection. She is a very sweet, almost waifish type but whilst she was ill it was like dealing with someone with dementia - her personality and thought processes were all over the place (anger, paranoia, accusatory, depression to euphoria). It took many weeks if not months for her to slowly get back to the person we knew. We talked to the nurse in the hospital and she said it was the infection.
> 
> What is the relevance of your BIL living nearer (confused) and what does he think?


True.

When you are sick and in pain, people act different, some act cranky and badly. 

Spend some time in a nursing home and just watch and listen.
Wow, an eye opening experience.

One, I have witnessed to my dismay...


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## Magnesium (Jun 19, 2017)

Was she self-absorbed like this before the illnesses? Seems like the entire process of your FIL dying was all about her. Is this new or a continuation of her character and personality?


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## NickyT (Aug 14, 2017)

Magnesium said:


> Was she self-absorbed like this before the illnesses? Seems like the entire process of your FIL dying was all about her. Is this new or a continuation of her character and personality?


I think it is an extreme display of something that has always been there. Honestly, I don't believe she was ever really happy with him. I know for certain there was a time when she was not. My husband said exactly what you did: His dying was all about her.

I don't know if I would call her self absorbed, but she definitely has some tendencies that I don't care for. She makes up stories about things and carries them to an extreme. For example, and this really happened years ago - my husband was sick. She started to worry that he was extremely sick. Then she started to think that we (me in particular) were hiding his disease from her. That manifested in her being nasty to me because I was keeping her son's terminal illness from her. See?

So, them talking about FIL going on hospice turned into her imagining he was dying in hospice, turned into her not being able to handle it, turned into her calling my husband and saying her WAS ON hospice and would die any minute. Not true. 

It's been a hell of a life.

Once about 10 years ago I became very ill with a virus that went undiagnosed for a few months. I literally could not walk across a room or dress myself. One day, my MIL showed up at my front door and asked me "how much more do you expect your husband to take?" Yeah. She had decided it was all too much for her son to bear. She imagined he would be caring for an invalid and the children. Her heart broke and she panicked and decided to come to my home and confront me.

Ugh. I could tell you a dozen stories like this. And me, from a family of engineers. Not even a drop of drama in the home. My mother never got above a blip, even when there were limbs dangling and blood flowing. Literally.


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## Openminded (Feb 21, 2013)

The worst has happened and she survived it -- that's probably how she looks at it. 

It's not uncommon for the survivor in a very long marriage (especially one that wasn't particularly happy) to feel relief that it's all over -- and even a sense of freedom that they maybe weren't expecting to feel. My guess is that she'll do very well by herself and won't need to live with you.


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## NickyT (Aug 14, 2017)

Thanks everyone. I am probably letting my history with them color my interpretation.


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## a_mister (Aug 23, 2017)

I think the word here is "boundaries".

She's going to say and do what she's going to say and do. Pay more attention to what she does. If she needs help, get her help, but don't turn it into needless babysitting. I think most people behave strangely at times like this, and if she was already a little odd, it's only going to be magnified.

Don't let her own grief absorb you and your husband. He needs to grieve, too.


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## cc48kel (Apr 5, 2017)

Yes, either she grieved all that time he was diagnosed since last year so when he passed, she could breathe and move forward with no issues. Or she's been ready for him to go all along--YEARS.


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## Yeswecan (Jul 25, 2014)

NickyT said:


> This is about grieving after a death. I am telling you the history because I think it is relevant to the mindset of my MIL and the family.
> 
> My father in law died Saturday. He was 86. He had congestive heart failure, had a heart attack in his 50's and had both an internal pacemaker and a defibrillator. He had stage 3 liver cancer - the tumor was 10 cm which is huge. When he was diagnosed in last May, he had no symptoms. The cancer was discovered by accident when diagnosing something unrelated. He and my MIL decided he would undergo chemo and radiation. The chemo was tough. He could not make it through the full course of radiation and stopped about 2/3 of the way through.
> 
> ...



Two things:

1. MIL was prepared for the end and grieving done prior to her H death.
2. MIL will be hit with a ton bricks as reality sets in. Just a matter of time. 


My mother was stalwart when my father died. Very matter of fact. Funeral arrangements made without issue. She appeared to be ok. Then it hit. Depression. She was prescribed anti-depressants. Something I thought I would never see my mother on. She spent a year clearing out the house. Dumping useless items and papers. Everything was in order for her passing. She was found dead on the kitchen floor.


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## bandit.45 (Feb 8, 2012)

She sounds like she has something akin to histrionic personality disorder. I dunno. Some people are just tweaked.


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## chillymorn69 (Jun 27, 2016)

Probably was an archie and edith marriage. 

Although they loved eachother and stayed together is was a marriage of convience/ necessity. 

Watching somone you were with for a long time slowley die is stressfull. The relief is probably great.

I know a woman married to a sick man and pretty soon she was wheel chair ridden as soon as he died she could walk again started dating a guy in great shape now she run 3 miles a day.

Go figure was she faking it? I don't know maybe when your around somone whos sick the depression wears you down and makes you sick.


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## Ynot (Aug 26, 2014)

I experienced a similar thing when my dad passed away. I think people tend to fall into "roles" depending on the situation. So when your FIL was dying her role was the distraught wife. Once he died, her role became different, she no longer had to play the role of the devoted, distraught spouse consumed with worry. Her plan of action may have already been laid out prior to the death of the FIL.
My step-mother acted in a similar manner. While my dad was dying she acted out a lot because she needed to be the center of attention. Displaying histrionics like that was common. Once he passed she too became a "survivor" valiantly doing what was required of her. 
I guess I wouldn't be too concerned. Just observe and only worry if it looks that you need to going forward.


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## Yeswecan (Jul 25, 2014)

Ynot said:


> I guess I wouldn't be too concerned. Just observe and only worry if it looks that you need to going forward.


Continuing with Ynot's thought here, your MIL will find herself lonely. My mother did. To combat the loneliness for my mom I would email everyday. She was not on FB. My one sibling would email as well or call. It is the loneliness that will bring the bricks down. Sure, my mom booked a few trips with friends. However, it was not the same as being with her companion who was there for a better part of 55 years.


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