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imvalfan,
Living ten years with MDS starting at age 75 is quite an achievement but I know that you'd like your mother to do even better, retain her strength, and stay out of the hospital. I hope her doctor is both experienced and caring because quality of life and end of life issues are very hard to deal with for everyone involved. You might want to seek out people associated with the hospital who can give you personal assistance or advice: social workers, gerontologists, or hospice managers.
Almost everyone who enters hospice finds it to be far superior to the other choices: frequent hospitalization, overtreatment and unnecessary tests, nursing homes, or a lack of care at home. You are right to think that leaving her alone at home is an unsuitable choice, given her age and health condition.
I know how intrusive it sounds at first to have a stranger in the house as caregiver, but hospice workers are typically such wonderful people that they quickly become friends and companions, not strangers. If your mother is still capable of making her own medical decisions then she should have her say and have her way, but I think if you encourage her to give home healthcare or hospice a try she'll very quickly find that she appreciates the help and company. I've seen people make this transition and go from resentment to acceptance to appreciation.
It also avoids the guilt and impracticability of having adult children try to act as full-time nurses, without having either training or time for that job. Once your mother has a caregiver with her, your visits will give her emotional support and you can enjoy each other's company as family, rather than spending all of your time in the role-reversal of a child as primary caregiver to a parent.
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