Hospice

At what point do you call hospice?  My father was diagnosed with Stage 4 lung cancer with mets to the bone.  Within the last 2 weeks he has worsened - tonight he breathing is so labored.  He says that it is because of this asthma.  The denial will never end.  My mother has been taking on the most care for him.  She looks exhusted and it has been less than 1 week since he needs help making meals, getting up from chairs and dressing.  My sister is in denial as well.  I have no qualms about getting help with my father.  She feels that I am terrible for not wanting to take care of my father.  My father knows that I would do everything for him.  A couple of weeks ago he said to me "how can 2 sisters be so different?"

My sister went to the oncologist with my parents and would not ask him where my father stands - how much time he has left.  I have read that once lung cancer spreads - individuals have no more than 6 months left.  I want to be prepared for what lies ahead.

Tracy 

Tracy,

The criteria for hospice care is that a doctor has to sign a statement saying that the patient has less than 6 months to live.  That is for hospice care covered by Medicare anyway and also any other insurance probably.  You can have home hospice care also.  That may be a good way to start your father.  If it becomes too hard at home he can be moved to an inpatient hospice center.  The bad part about hospice is that you have to stop all cancer treatments.  So you have to be sure your dad is ready and willing to do that.

My husband has Renal cancer and was very ill in december of 2006.  They told us he should go into hospice care as there was no other treatments they could try at that time.  He improved so much by the end of the 6 months of home hospice care that they told us they would have to review his case.  Right at that time the FDA approved a new treatment for his cancer so he stopped the hospice care and went back on treatment.

I wish you luck with whatever decision you make.  It is hard.

Chris

Thanks

 Right now - I do not think that death is on my father's mind.  The pain is and deep down I think that he thinks that once the pain goes away he will be fine.

He is supposed to start 4 treatments of chemo (once every 4 weeks) and radiation (which I think is for pain management).  My sister insisted on going to the oncologist so she never gives full reports.  I would have gone as well but I have to stay home to watch her kids.

Tracy 

Radiation for pain management? Oh, no! It's for zapping malignancies with gamma rays, and has its own unpleasant side effects!

As long as your father's doctors are proposing treatments, and he's going through with it, he's not hospice material.

Who knows? Some people rise up from their "deathbeds" and go into remission and live ten more years; some people go on a talk show looking perfectly fine and then die in two weeks.

It's very hard on caregivers, especially if there are a bunch of you with different outlooks. I'm going through this with my brother, mother, the other sibs and his daughter and granddaughter.

It's a b*tch, isn't it?

When we were in the ER last Sunday the doc said that the radiation would ease some of the pain.  My sister said that the oncologist said the same thing.

 I never thought that radiation would do this but we will wait and see.

My mom had chemo and radiation. The radiation she had was for 6 weeks going f days a week. It made her very tired but baout 4 months after radiation ended she got scarring of the lung which is a side effect from the radiation. It got worse and it was hard for her to breath as her lungs ere not able to expand. She also got pleural effusion I don't know if that was connected to the radiation or not. That is a rare side effect but still it could happen. If your dad wants to fight I would let him. My mom wanted to fight until the end. We never had hospice as an option because the doctors never told us. I had asked the doctor and he said he was giving her meds and to wait till Friday and see how she is, she passend on Thursday without us even knowing the end was that close. If you want to talk pleas let me know.

Sandi