Now I Have to Play God? So Daddy and I visited a lung specialist today who confirmed that there is a mass in his chest. With daddy's advanced age and other conditions, he feels it may be best to just let nature take its course.
The thing is...Daddy didn't make any advanced directives when he was of sound mind, and I'm left with the burden of deciding whether we should keep him alive when this mass rears its ugly head.
I have no support system as many of you know so I feel very alone right now. In a normal world I would discuss with the family but I can't take being railroaded by them right now or being called selfish for a DNR decision.
I'm angry. Why does this fall on me? Why should I suffer because he chose to smoke?
I'm afraid. I don't want this responsibility. I'm sad. I'm essentially left to decide his ultimate fate. I feel like a murderer.
This isn't fair. I don't know what to do.
Some people do find canabis very helpful in controlling nausea during chemo treatment and if it is legal where you live I would not be opposed to trying it.
However falsely raising someones expectation of a cure with herbal treatments may raise the moral but finally the disease will probably win.
however I would not encourage anyone to spend money they don't have on alternative therapy or any other experimental treatment for that matter.
DNR or not someone eventually has to make the decision to turn off the life support.
Basically, you are refusing resuscitation and can also refuse what is known as heroic measures. There are things that will be beyond your control and the hospital will tell you when needed. Things like going onto a respirator - this is a doctor's decision and he told us his opinion and then we had to decide. Since my dad and sister wanted mom on the respirator, the doctor pulled me aside and asked me to speak with them. It was not in my mother's best interest.
It was easy enough - I just asked my dad if it was him in the bed, what would he want me to do. He cried but he said, no respirator. Then my sister followed his wishes against her own feelings. She believed mom would come out of it, but my mother was gone, only the body remained.
Before it is too late, ask your dad what he wants.
They will also ask in the hospital! Also, if he doesn't wish to go to the hospital, you can call Hospice Care and they too will question him about what he wants.
The Dr was either over enthusiastic or felt it was the responsible thing to do to offer the procedure..
I can perfectly understand any patient when offered the choice of a procedure or certain death choosing the procedure. As surgery goes putting in a pacemaker is not a big deal and does not carry the risks of open heart surgery or the long recovery. I realize he was 101and the treatment did not give him any quality of life in his final days. But the thing to remember is that he would probably had suffered without the pacemaker as well.
Unless someone has been declared incompetent they are free to make their own decisions which your FIL obviously did.
So sorry FIL's final days were filled with suffering. Try not to second guess things that can't be altered.
It is a normal part of grieving to try and find someone else to blame so try and let that go and get on with the grieving and move forward.
Mother was hospitalized for pnemonia and according to her DNR Health Care directive they would not have given her fluids, antibiotics and a raft of other things she needed on that occasion and for another time she was hospitalized after a serious fall. God meant her to have these years. We moved Mother to a better private facility. Myself and her Kitty are her 24 - 7 full time caregivers. We also have a friend who stays with Mom 1 evening a week while I go to Choir practice and a retired Nurse who comes in 5 hours a mid week day for shopping and appointments. My Son watches Mom or they join me at church on Sunday mornings and his wife helps out once in a while. These are blessed precious loving family days and we have a system to prevent any falls. These are the good family times that escaped Mother and I during most of my life. She is pleasant and loving telling me she doesn't know what she would do without me. (It is vice versa). Mother could live to 106 and God Willing I will be with her. Her life would have been snuffed out too early by the DNR Health Directive she had at the rouge facility where she used to reside. Once the new Health Care Directive was in place, they retaliated by setting her on a path of negligence and destruction where she would have been sure to die. They dug me through the mud and cut my hours when I tried to stop them. My son got her out of there alive but invalid and with her glaucoma sever to the point were The Charles Bonnet Syndrom set in, she was having visual hallucinations from their failure to properly administer eye drops, a sign of end of vision. Mother has improved greatly since our move, she can walk around her room or down the hall with her walker and her eyes though damaged have stabilized. She has not had any more visual hallucinations. There is a point where you don't want a LO to suffer anymore, when there is no longer happiness, love and a quality of life. Don't be caught up in the rhetoric. This is just a business to too many facilities and Institutions. They want turnover. They make more money that way. Protect your LO. God Bless.
You used to be an attorney. What happened?
Your presentation stirred up a hornets nest. How so?
"Rogue facility". What exactly does that mean?
And how do facilities make more money with patient turnover ? I would think they'd want the place full and not be constantly regiggering rooms, people and new care plans.
Your mom is lucky to have you, your son and all the help she gets. And you are also very fortunate to not be the sole caregiver.
There must have been 50 to 60 Nurses in the room. It was the best attended Bar Association Presentation that I was ever in front of. I was a last minute substitute for the speaker who was attending a weekend retreat. Soon after starting I realized how committed the nurses were to the DNR. They were angry. Anyone who raised their hand got a chance to speak. I didn't argue with anyone but did give my truthful opinion of the state of the acceptance of the DNR Directives. No one else spoke up against the abuse of the DNR. In my Mothers case she was swept away with signing the DNR by the facility that had a neat package of admittance to their facility. When she changed her Health Care Directive from when she signed the DNR in 2002, the facility reasoned that she had more of her mental facilities being so much younger than when she changed her directive in 2015. My argument was that she woke up to the probability of a hospital stay and she did not want to die if an antibiotic or fluids were withheld. We were having and enjoying a blessed existence. It didn't make sense to Mother, myself or son to have such a low bar to withhold treatment.
Rogue facility means the corporate environment was corrupt and lying was standard behavior. The well-fare of a resident was low on their agenda.
The facility made a fortune after they injured Mother, she paid for 2 rooms for the time when she was in their Health Care Center and she had to also pay for her independent living apartment at the same time. They did not permit her to go back to her Independent Living Apartment even though she was still paying for the apartment. She was forced to go to Personal Care, after the Health Care Center. The Nurses Aids who took her to breakfast negligently brought her back to her room and sat her in front of the TV in her LR when she couldn't ambulate of navigate the chair. She couldn't reason to push her button to call an aid. She had multiple falls and each fall would make her sicker and fog up her mind. I have gone over and over these details in Aging Care as I want to warn others what can happen when I hear their Questions. I appreciate all the answers to the questions I had. Aging Care and the Lord got Mother and I out of the rouge facility and into a very nice facility near where I have had a home since the mid 80's. It is like a different country and culture here. People, especially the staff here are loving and kind.
Thank you for your compliments. My son and his wife are great support and we also pay for Caretakers one night a week when I practice with the choir and on Wednesdays for 4 to 5 hours so I can keep Dr. appointments and/or go shopping. It is importance to keep yourself mentally and physically healthy when you are a Caretaker.