DEAR JANE: I sold mother’s home to cover my debts while she was in a hospice. Now she wants to die at home – and I can’t bring myself to tell her

Dear Jane,

My 72 year old mother was diagnosed with terminal illness cancer six months ago and has been in hospice care for the past few weeks.

My father died a few years ago, so my brother and I managed her affairs between the two of us – and we quickly realized that her finances were in a pretty dire state.

Her medical bills were astronomical and added a huge amount of debt to what was already a pretty big hole.

My brother and I had already discussed selling the house before she went into hospice; We are both financially stable but have our own families and can’t afford to pay off her debts on our own, so putting the property on the market seemed like the only option.

However, when she entered hospice care, we realized that it was not just an option to consider, but a choice we had to make if we wanted to have any chance of extricating ourselves from the legacy of a tremendous amount of debt.

A week later we put the house on the market and it sold very quickly, which was great.

The thing is, we didn’t tell her. We didn’t want to saddle her with the debt or the fact that we would have to deal with it because we were afraid she would insist on going home and saving on medical bills.

International bestselling author Jane Green offers sage advice on DailyMail.com readers’ most burning issues in her column Dear Jane agony aunt

Looking back, it was a stupid decision.

And now she’s told us she wants to leave hospice so she can die peacefully at home. My heart breaks because the house she has such fond memories of is actually no longer hers. And I have no idea how to tell her the truth.

By trying to make the best of a bad situation, I feel like my brother and I just made it a hundred times worse. How can we inflict more pain on a dying woman?

By,

Sinful son

Dear sinful son,

Considering the cost of healthcare in America – 66.5 percent of bankruptcies are due to medical bills – your situation may be heartbreaking, but you have made a brave and wise decision to help emerge from potentially crippling financial debts.

I’m so sorry your mother asked to die at home.

While I tend to advise honesty in most situations, I also try to cause as little harm as possible to everyone involved.

I’m afraid that knowing that your mother’s house has been sold, especially in this situation, could be significantly detrimental to her already poor health.

There is no winning here, but I urge you not to let yourself down.

It seems to me that the elegant way to deal with this is to talk to the hospice staff. A hospice at home is always an interesting alternative, but a hospital bed at home and a visiting hospice nurse do not provide the same care as a hospice with full-time 24-hour care.

A milder approach, given this shitty situation, is for your mother to believe – and this may very well be true – that there are not enough facilities or care to go home, and that a hospice stay will be much more comfortable for her .

I’m sorry you’re all going through this, and I wish you all peace.