I have posted on here many times and answered questions every now and then. Dad passed away Oct 7th 2013 from Liver Cancer . He was in a hospice facility for 11 days until he died. The day before he was admitted he was in the hospital and was talking,eating and very clear headed but his ammonia levels were high and he had been very combative, not eating and wouldn't take his meds for 4 days at his nursing home. ( He was in for a Psych Evaluation.) The hospice worker talked to me about admitting him instead of returning to the nursing home. I agreed to this and arrangements were made. He was transferred later that day and was alert and in good spirits. The next morning he was unresponsive and stayed that way until he passed. They gave him morphine and ativan around the clock. He never got any water but they did cleanse his mouth and moisten it with swabs. It seemed like he could hear me the first few days because I would shake his shoulder and say "dad". His eyes seemed to be moving under his eyelids and his mouth would move slightly. I did ask about them lowering his dosages so he could wake up a little. The nurse said he was getting a very small dosage already. I just wonder if the drugs made him unresponsive and if less was used he could have ate and drank and lived longer. I know it was time for him to go but I'm kinda puzzled about his going from complete alertness and straight into unresponsiveness so quick. The nurses did a Great job. I myself don't know how they do it. They treated dad like he was their baby. So gentle and compassionate. I was just wondering if anyone else had the feeling that death felt a little rushed once their loved one was placed in Hospice.
Don't tinker with any medications without at least informing her MD, or not unless you're a trained pharmacologist anyway (which I am definitely not, by the way). It may well be that her overall px does need an urgent review, especially if there has been a change in kidney function or heart function, but this is no job for an amateur - get advice.
Bad night last night though, I think she is having bad side effects from the gabapentin. She woke up at midnight with nightmares and delusions, then fell this morning (seems ok physically). so I am going to wean her off it. Ugh!
So not to be alarmist, but if your mother has that kind of cardiac history, combined with her current symptoms, I would remain extremely suspicious notwithstanding the negative test results.
Not that it necessarily makes any difference in terms of treatment - she's already taking anti-clotting meds, is she? - but it can't do any harm to keep an extra eye open for symptoms. I'm sorry to be a doom merchant. Hope she gradually recovers and things get more stable for her, best of luck to you.
Thanks for your input. I am talking to rest of family in a couple of weeks to get their input.
"Healthy nurse uses suicide clinic to 'avoid old age.'"
Good grief. The article begins [caveat, by the way, the journalist who wrote this is pretty free with her adjectives and has annoyed me in the past by being plain silly. But let that pass] :
'A leading palliative care nurse with no serious health problems has ended her life at a Swiss suicide clinic because she did not want to end up as a "hobbling old lady."
'Gill Pharaoh, 75, who wrote two books on how to care for the elderly, was not suffering from a terminal disease. She said she had seen enough of old age to know that she was "going over the hill" and wanted to take action to end her life while she was able to do so.'
There are eight more paragraphs like this and frankly it's far too depressing and bonkers to type all of it - if anyone wants to look up the article, you should be able to find it on The Daily Telegraph's website I expect.
A spokesman for Care Not Killing said: deeply troubling case, chilling message etc etc.
While a spokesman for The Society for Old Age Rational Suicide (can't they come up with a snappier title than that? Let's Get Dead or something?) went for the lofty tone with having seen much suffering… rational decision… blah blah blah.
So standard party lines, really; no surprises there.
But what neither the grandly-titled Health Editor nor either spokesman comments on is the, to me anyway, far more alarming question of what kind of palliative care this lady was dishing out on a daily basis that made her feel so strongly that death was preferable. And she wrote books? I hope they're going to die with her.
We are not alone, there are others who have been through the same situation right here on this site and I know of others on other sites also.It is so very wrong and against a patients rights for any medical facility to force drugs on patients who do not want them. I do believe that a patient does have a right to refuse drugs that they do not want.I think this law should be enforced. Other laws should be put in place such as informing patients of the dangers they face when going into hospice as if the disease is not enough of a problem. My mom was forced into hospice because of her age and a sedative overdose. She was in a sedative overdose that she had not come out of for 2 weeks.
She also had a hospital skin fungal infection.The hospital that she went to was treating it with about 4 different kinds of fungal meds no antibiotic cause antibiotic is deadly for this kind of infection. It will make it spread.The doctor said she was on the road to recovery even though she was still in a coma from the sedative overdose. She needed to continue the treatment. but she went to another hospital to see her original doctor and they decided to treat her to antibiotics which they knew would kill her especially since she was so weakened from so many sedative overdoses.They sent her to hospice and put the antibiotics in the vein in her neck to make sure she would still get her deadly dose for her condition.These kinds of treatments of sedative overdoses and all the other horrible treatments just need to stop. I found out later that the doctors did not want to bother to continue to treat her because of her age even though it was helping her so much.
Then I found out that on her death certificate that several end stages disease were listed that she never had cause an investigation was done you can ask for an investigation also for your dad.
Maybe we can get an online support group going with other people who have been through the same things as we have and figure out ways to change the laws.