ChickieToo
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Jul 8, 2004
- Messages
- 599
I would ask at the hospital if thye have a "palliative care" team. Palliative care is sort of "pre-hospice" if you will allow me to make up a word. Palliative care looks at the whole picture, talks to the patient, talks to the fmaily and makes care recommendaitons based on all of the above. Palliative care people are really good about fleshing out the patient's desires and getting everyone on board with them.
I'm kind of puzzled how her potassium could be high with diarrhea unless her kidneys are starting to fail. Usually diarrhea results in low potassium.
I don't know what your relationship is with her primary doctor, b ut do keep in mind that sometimes doctors' personal beliefs will "color" their perceptions about end of life. And no they shouldn't and all the arguments people will give me, but the fact is, they do. I am acquainted with MDs who have a hard time letting people go...and I don't mean hastening someone's death, but just doing comfort measures and letting nature take its course.
I am a bit surpirsed your mother's primary MD doesn't think she's got 6 months or less...just a low BP like that in someone her age could have a huge impact.
If you are pretty well convinced that her care has been good, she has been well-hydrated, they have ruled out a bacterial cause for the diarrhea (c.diff is usually the culprit), then I'd think twice about putting her through a lot of invasive procedures. 93 is a good long life and it's OK to go.
...I know it's hard....
disneydoll, are you a nurse? I recently went through a lot of what you just described. I lost my 79 year old mother (who coincidentally lived in Trumbull) just over a week ago. She had a lot of the same things going on that the OP describes and then some. It would be too lengthy to discuss all her ailments, but I will say that she was in a downward spiral that started a year ago after she went into the hospital for tests for shortness of breath. She was in and out of the hospital for various infections and wounds after that. She was a dialysis patient for quite a long time, so she had been weakened just by the wear and tear on her body. This last time she was back in the hospital with unrelenting cdiff and extremely low blood pressure, and was dehydrated--you can see how all these are inter-related. She was in and out of intensive care until she told me enough. She wanted to stop it all. We complied and she was gone about 55 hours later.
OP, as disneydoll says, you can ask the hospital about palliative care which can happen concurrently with treatment. It is really about pain management and comfort. We started talking to our hospitalist about this, but then my mother wanted to stop all treatment: no dialysis, no dopamine for her BP, no more antibiotics, no more fluids, etc. So then we moved on to hospice, which we were familiar with when my father had cancer. Nine years ago when he passed we were able to do hospice in our house because we got a hospice nurse overnight so we could sleep. We were told there was no availability of the same nursing support due to medicare changes, but we decided to do it anyway. The hospital dropped the ball, and we couldn't get her home quickly enough and she passed in the hospital. However, my DH and I were there with her and was I able to call my siblings back to see her in time.
I think that you need to get a big picture view of her health to make a decision. In my case, the hospital staff was very supportive, and they kept suggesting different treatments and tests to try to get her stable. No one suggested she was near the end and that we should stop until I told the doctor what my mother wanted. Then he said it was probably best because it was like a dog chasing it's tail, and that they should have come to us about that possibility. And every doctor we told after the decision was made then said that it was probably the best decision. The fact that she passed so quickly after stopping treatment just illustrated to us has on the edge she really was.
Good luck to you, and don't stop asking questions and looking for answers. This is your mother, and you have the right to make her comfortable, and if she desires help into the last phase of her life.
