Mom’s in denial awaiting transplant

[KellyMac]

Hi there, I’m fairly new to helping care for my mother. She’s been on peritoneal dialysis for around 2 years. Lately she’s become much more symptomatic and last week she was taken to the ER via ambulance with severe shortness of breath and extremely high blood pressure/sugar. She had pneumonia in one lung, and in the folder with her hospital discharge papers I found information on living with congestive heart failure. I’m trying to help but it’s difficult, mainly because she doesn’t want to be in a position of needing help. She’s in denial in many ways. I wouldn’t find that so worrisome if she had no hope ~ but she’s awaiting kidney transplant surgery, so it’s crucial that we help to keep her as healthy as possible as long as possible. Lately she’s become much more symptomatic, in a small amount of time. She’s overwhelmed (understandably) and not managing her diet as well as she needs to be. Does anyone here have experience with this sort of situation? It’s hard to know just how pushy it is appropriate to be. It’s really hard.
I’m also wondering how the recent heart trouble may affect her ability to receive transplant surgery. I’m having my last evaluation appointments for living kidney donation on 12/6-7 and hoping that we will be able to have the surgeries soon ~ although she is highly sensitized (has a large amount of antibodies which may likely cause the recipient’s body to reject the new kidney). We are participating in the paired exchange program.
I don’t want to infringe on her basic rights ~ but the denial that I’m seeing really concerns me as I can see her condition deteriorating. Anyone with similar experience or advice?