Body Shutting Down

Hospice has said my mother's body is shutting down.  This has been going on for more than a week.  Can someone that has been through this part of the death process tell me how long your experience lasted?  Does it take weeks or days for the body to let go completely?

my mom just passed away today this morning.  Her body started shutting down a few weeks ago.  when they couldn't detect her blood pressure at the icu yesterday, we knew it was going to be very soon.  She needed her blood pressure to be higher in order to urinate and she was barely urinating.  Her heart rate started going down from 130 to 113 to 50 to 30 til she passed away.  After she passed away, she release some saliva out of her mom.  I really loved my mom and will miss her.  Jesus needs her up in heaven now. 

Thank you for responding.  I don't know why I'm obsessed with "knowing" ahead of time, but I am.

 My mom has been vomitting everything she swallows for the last 10 - 12 days.  We are no longer asking her if she wants to eat.  She knows her body is shutting down and when she thinks about it during her moments of conciousness, she asks for crackers, jello, anything, trying to force herself to eat it (thinking that if she keeps trying, her digestive system will kick back in.).  This is hard to watch.  She's a fighter and she's not going to give in...she'll take the last swing her body will allow.

I'm noticing her eyes are not focusing, vision is blurred and her speech is worsening.  Her extremities are not yet cold to touch.  She hasn't urinated in two days, no bowel movement for at least three weeks.

She's not in pain though.  We make sure she takes her pain meds on time, along with a nerve pill to lessen her confusion.

So my mother has a few more weeks of suffering that we have to witness daily around the clock?  I'm angry about that.  I'm angry that cancers eat life so slowly.  Nothing about this is fair.

Please accept my apologies.  I was so wrapped up in my world, that I selfishly forgot to send my condolences for your mother's passing.  Please forgive me.  I hope it's comforting to know that your mother's suffering is now over and she's in a much better place than we are.

You and your family will be in my prayers.

I'm so sorry for you.  My mother is also suffering, not yet at the point your mother is at.  Yes, this is a horrible disease.  Please just know that my thoughts are with you.  I'm "obsessed" with knowing what's going on too.  We can't help that.  Please, please know that folks here at the message board are supporting you.  Post a message whenever you need to talk.  I'm so sorry that you are going through this, and I'm sorry for your dear mom.  My mom's a fighter too.  God Bless you and your mother.

I am so sorry about your mother. I know too well what the "shutting down" looks like. My husband of 27 years died this afternoon of pancreatic cancer. He also shut down before his death. He'd been vomiting for a week and stopped eating on Monday. He became very disoriented and almost incoherent. He was only semi-awake much of the day. Today, he got out of bed by himself.When I helped him back into bed,he gave one shudder and died.  Talk to your mother about how you'll miss her but that you understand that it's okay for her to go. Today I told my husband that and it seemed to calm him. A few hours later he died.

I am so sorry that this terrible illness has entered your family. My prayers are with you.

 

On 6/27/2007 The Wife wrote:

I am so sorry about your mother. I know too well what the "shutting down" looks like. My husband of 27 years died this afternoon of pancreatic cancer. He also shut down before his death. He'd been vomiting for a week and stopped eating on Monday. He became very disoriented and almost incoherent. He was only semi-awake much of the day. Today, he got out of bed by himself.When I helped him back into bed,he gave one shudder and died.  Talk to your mother about how you'll miss her but that you understand that it's okay for her to go. Today I told my husband that and it seemed to calm him. A few hours later he died.

I am so sorry that this terrible illness has entered your family. My prayers are with you.

My prayers are with you.  My mom is fighting this disease, at 75 years of age.  I'm so sorry that you have lost your husband of 27 years.  Whoever you are, you are in my thoughts.  Bless you.

Hello my name is Teri.. I hope that my experience with my own mother's dying process will give you some insight on what to expect.. My mother passed away from complications from diabetes september 2, 2004.. The hospice nursing staff conveyed to us (me and my siblings) that with most long terminal illnesses the dying process is the same when the body shuts down.  2 weeks before she passed away while she was still in the nursing home she stopped eating solid foods. A couple days later she stopped eating soft food so they put her on baby food.. When she got to the point where she didn't want to eat at all, the nursing staff recommended hospice care. We were then informed that her body had begun its shutting down process. We were then aware that was the beginning of the end.. The day after we took her home she became delerious and semi-concious. We were instructed to give her morphine as recommended for pain and restlessness which was indicated by the rise of her blood pressure. Soon after, she went into a coma. She was still  able to hear because I would say mom can you hear me and she would make a mumbling noise. She was on a catheter. Her urine got darker and darker by the day and simultanously her breathing became more shallow, slower and rougher. Just an hour before she died she had an unusual spark of energy.. Also you want to look out for what would appear as hallucinations but they are not.. She experienced a visit from her father who passed away years ago. I hope this helps you out atleast a little bit :o)  Teri

They made me lie to get back in here, and I don't have cancer, but I wanted to thank you all for what I got to read. I have been looking for months for info like this. I am shutting down from something; each doctor wants his own expensive tests to "rule out" the others. Serious symptoms started after some (needless) surgery and progressed at medium speed until now they are snowballing. I have no "DX," (which means nothing for pain) so where to look -?- everywhere. Latest thing is sleepiness as if I was drugged, yet awake all night, never felt so weak. Everything points to a dystrophy of some sort, even though older works claim it is male-inherited only. Newer sources do not mention gender. I had a stoke the same day my husband did in 2005 and was not given "credit" for it (therefore I never had it) even though I was right there in ICU. Visitors didn't count. Since then I can tolerate a diet of white milk only, and should have died last year from malnutrition. However, my body, and probably everybody else's, is playing this game by it's own rules -- so this could last for days or months and I'm sure it applies to cancer, too. No amount of prayer, positive thinking, biofeedback, more tests, etc. will touch it, merely prolong the agony for usually selfish reasons. So, in my case, it is taking years of small changes and new symptoms to "shut down" -- REMEMBER THAT while reading. I do not want to linger for 8 years as an invalid and I feel a weakness and paralysis in several places: pelvis, shoulders, large bone areas. The pain is excruciating whether I'm moving or not. I can't wait for it to shut down in slow motion while I still have my wits about me (so there wasn't much use in joining y'all - LOL). My eldest daughter has inherited tendencies for colon cancer from both sides, and her 16-year old is in remission from A.L.L, so I guess I do have a cancer connection. Someone told me "too bad you didn't have cancer, you'd at least have some pain relief then." I'm still not sure how I take that... I am at --Message edited by CancerCompass staff. For personal protection, email address removed. Consider private reply. Please review CancerCompass Member Guidelines at http://www.cancercompass.com/common/guidelines.html--. as I will never find my way back into here. Thanks so much again for all the good data -- I now know I am RIGHT and have been for 3 years. S.S. RN, BSN

 

On 6/26/2007 Concerneddaughter100 wrote:

Hospice has said my mother's body is shutting down.  This has been going on for more than a week.  Can someone that has been through this part of the death process tell me how long your experience lasted?  Does it take weeks or days for the body to let go completely?