*DAYTIME AND EVENING GENERAL GRIEF GROUPS AVAILABLE EVERY WEEK* CLICK HERE TO JOIN US!

Feeling of guilt after hospice medications

Discussion in 'Life After Caregiving' started by PHH1983, Jan 31, 2026.

  1. PHH1983

    PHH1983 New Member

    I've been feeling like after being a caregiver my whole career and then spending a decade caregiving my Mom, medicating her during her last days for comfort purposes I keep cycling back to the knowledge that it she might have rebounded again and still be here with me. It's the kind of Schrodinger's Cat scenario and part of me feels relieved that she's at peace but also feeling like if I had done things differently would she still be alive and well. After loosing my Dad when I was 14 I only want to save lives and having a distinct feeling of guilt that I could have been the reason my Mom is gone now too.
     
  2. MyHeartIsBroken

    MyHeartIsBroken New Member

    I feel like that was me writing that. I was the caregiver for my mom. She lived with me for over 15 years and about 4 years ago she was diagnosed with congestive heart failure and started to show signs of dementia. Her dementia progressed quickly. Toward the end she had so my agitation and started to not know who I was and considered me the enemy (I was not only her daughter but we were best friends). Seroquel was recommended but it started to have a paradoxical effect on her so the hospice nurse suggested to put her in-house hospice to get her medication under control. She specifically said she would be home in a day or two as soon as they figured it out. So transport came to get her and by the time I got there, she was snowed...they pumped her so full of phenobarbital that her kidneys couldn't get rid of the toxins. She died 4 days later. Why? Why did they do that? I got no answers from them. They told me she was transitioning. She wasn't transitioning when she left my house! What happened? I am devastated. I never got to talk to her again. I never got to say good bye. I never got to tell her how much I love her. I not only have grief, I have traumatic grief. I will never get over this. I have so many horrible memories that I can't get out of my head. I cry all day every day.