End of Life Care

Yesterday, the home health nurse sent my FIL to the hospital. He was coughing up blood and had severe chest pains. This morning, while I was getting ready to leave for work, I get a call from the hospital that he wants to see his family, and they need phone numbers for my MIL and SIL. They were trying to reach Hubby, but because he's away at work, they got me instead.

The nurse wouldn't tell me anything (even though I'm his primary care giver) so I gave her my MIL & SIL's numbers and waited for news.

I had an inkling what was going on.

Turns out FIL is now refusing care, and signed a DNR. He only wants to be made comfortable. 

On the one hand, I am not surprised and am somewhat relieved. He is in pain, and I knew it was only a matter of time before he did this (his mother and father both died from cancer). Now hospice will become involved instead of us waiting around like everyone kept doing (I've been asking for hospice to get involved since he moved in with us. I know I'm not a doctor, but I know when a person is beyond what I can do for them) ad he will recieve palliative care.

However, on the other hand, I am sad about this. My hubby has been trying to hide from the diagnosis since day one, and my SIL has been a wreck. I hate to see my family go through this, even as frustrated as I was with them last week. 

What experiances have you had when it comes to hospice and end of life care, and how did the rest of your family deal with things?

In our situation when things went south in a blink of an eye, the social workers and hospice people were godsends for sure.

His family was totally supportive of the decisions that I made and all were very involved in his life and in the weeks, days, hours,minutes, leading to end of his life.

Hospice is just not there for the person who is sick, they are there for you and family also. They also do not make all the decisions of keeping your loved one comfortable, they report things back to the doctor and the doctor is really the one in control when it comes to meds to keep him comfortable. My experience with hospice was wonderful and don't think I would have made it through without the beautiful, compassionte people that took care of us.

If he is in pain, something needs to be done because there is absolutely no reason for that, way too many things out there to keep him comfortable. Please talk to someone about that.

Sorry to hear you are walking in these shoes

Take care

The ELC was of huge help to me and my family with my dads stage 4 cancer. The nurse made him more comfortable and gave our family much needed advice.

On Feb 01, 2013 4:01 PM mkar520 wrote:

Yesterday, the home health nurse sent my FIL to the hospital. He was coughing up blood and had severe chest pains. This morning, while I was getting ready to leave for work, I get a call from the hospital that he wants to see his family, and they need phone numbers for my MIL and SIL. They were trying to reach Hubby, but because he's away at work, they got me instead.

The nurse wouldn't tell me anything (even though I'm his primary care giver) so I gave her my MIL & SIL's numbers and waited for news.

I had an inkling what was going on.

Turns out FIL is now refusing care, and signed a DNR. He only wants to be made comfortable. 

On the one hand, I am not surprised and am somewhat relieved. He is in pain, and I knew it was only a matter of time before he did this (his mother and father both died from cancer). Now hospice will become involved instead of us waiting around like everyone kept doing (I've been asking for hospice to get involved since he moved in with us. I know I'm not a doctor, but I know when a person is beyond what I can do for them) ad he will recieve palliative care.

However, on the other hand, I am sad about this. My hubby has been trying to hide from the diagnosis since day one, and my SIL has been a wreck. I hate to see my family go through this, even as frustrated as I was with them last week. 

What experiances have you had when it comes to hospice and end of life care, and how did the rest of your family deal with things?

Im in remision now but back in 2007 I had CA stage 4 to the bone Doctors told me I was going to die but I know befor then I was going to die But I would not put my family though it So I looked for other ways to fight it it took me a long time but it worked What have they done so far for himhttp://www.apacbiotech.com/apac-brochure.pdf  have they tryed IV vitamin C it work for me for a while take care Ray