'I'm going to die on Monday at 6.15pm'

Oh!

I think the doctor read her behavoir exactly right when he asked her if there were still things she felt like she needed to do. Not that she need to literally clean house but perhaps mentally clean house.

BB, yes, but when?

This woman was determined, but was arguably not at the threshold for certain choices, and sidled along in it.
It's hard enough for our dogs.. tougher for humans, many having changing perceptions within hours. This woman did have her mind set, I won't say in a hostile way, but edging on it. More talk might have been good, if there had been a breakthrough. Whether that was possible, I can't guess, but guessing anyway, think no.
I didn't get breakthroughs with either of my parents, except a couple of remembered sentences.



Editing myself, this woman may have been driven by hostility, probably another bag of things to talk about.

Oh, indeed.

Thing is, things were so much at an awful point and nothing could be dealt with...they were paralysed...I have seen this so often, and it makes me want to scream and DO something! Well, in real life when I have been working with people, I often could (don't work with dying folk much now.)

The doctor tried, but had no real tools nor, I guess, legitimacy, in attempting to move things along. He began, with the comment re unfinished business, but took it nowhere.

And I don't know that it would have taken all that much...just some empathic reflection and the floodgates may have opened.

But how awful! As well as the things that Rob listed above, this poor woman was still at such an angry and terrified state that she was blaming her chidren...it's a bit subtle, but she says it and then backs away, when she talks about it having started in her womb, but she's still glad she had them...

I don't think anyone is attacking the mother...I am certainly not, and I get her very well indeed...it just hurts to see that there is no help in letting her express all these terrified and angry feelings and for this family to come together.

Indeed...though, I have to say, with my mum, I was able to kind of do it without the talk.....one can speak a lot in symbols ...but it depends on where the relationship is.

Both my mother and father had dementias (and what for me, eh?) and the moments of talk were years before the day, if then. But, re your take on this, Dlowan, I follow it, nod.

A dear friend of mine has a smart policy. She calls it the toothpaste guide. Don't say anything that can't be put back in the toothpaste tube.

Smart friend. She's had to observe her policy with her adult children, who are disappointed that she's moving back to Albuquerque rather than remaining closer to them in a state she now hates.

BBB