Katrina Prescott, left, with her mother, Kathryn Love. Prescott took on a caregiver role, without the training, in the final years of her mother’s dementia.
In the final years of her mother’s dementia, marked by deep declines and unexpected recoveries, Katrina Prescott provided a kind of medical care, without the training.
Prescott lost count of the times that death had seemed near but in April of 2022, when it was clearly imminent, she sat alone in her Vancouver apartment, listening to her mother breathing, while reading the drug schedule left by a visiting palliative-care doctor. He placed a subcutaneous port in her mother’s stomach and told Prescott how to inject pain medication to ease the pain of dying.
She wanted to say goodbye as a daughter but had to act as a nurse.
“My mom was dying and I had to do all this but the thing is, I was lucky because so many people probably don’t even have that kind of help,” said Prescott, 46, a producer of commercials and corporate films.
Everyone who has cared for a dying parent, relative or friend has a palliative-care story to tell.
Some had a good experience. Others had no help. Many, like Prescott, witnessed long periods of near death, then recovery, wondering how long a parent can last. Is it months? Or years?
Caregiving, Prescott said, was deeply meaningful but even with the palliative support she received, it was so exhausting she feels physically aged by years.
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Disgraceful behaviour on Parliament Hill
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Dutcher wins second Polaris award
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