Prayers to you and your family.
I have been through this twice, but will have to do it again.
My Dad broke a hip and femur at 89. Developed pneumonia,and his healing ability was gone. They knocked the pneumonia out, but he continued to deteriorate. Was discharged to hospice and passed 12 hours later. He did not want to die in the hospital. My opinion was an overdose of morphine.
My Mom at 86 was fighting cancer and underwent chemp and radiation treatment. Really wrecked her health and left her unable to eat or drink fluids. They wanted to discharge her to hospice, but hospice can not administer IV fluids on intubate . We refused to let them starve and dehydrate her to death. Under threat of a law suit, the hosp treated her to the point she could again take fluid and food by mouth. Then she was discharged to hospice.
Pain was her biggest challenge, and hospice uses drugs that Drs will not prescribe to other patents. This helped, and allowed hefr to eat and stay hydrated. After 4 months, she “graduated” from hospice, meaning she was no longer in a life threatening situation. That was almost 3 years ago. She has started getting weaker of late, so will deal with it when we have to.
To answer you on the morphine, I felt it was a godsend for my Mom, as it saved her life. On my Dad, I think his body had already given out and he just wanted to go home. Once there, he was at peace, and without any pain due to the drugs.
There are several good articles on signs of approaching the end of life. Sorry I don’t have the links, but it is worth searching.
And DNR is part of hospice. They concentrate on comfort, not prolonging life at that point.
“Pain was her biggest challenge, and hospice uses drugs that Drs will not prescribe to other patents. This helped...”
“To answer you on the morphine, I felt it was a godsend for my Mom, as it saved her life.”
Thank you for sharing that. Being in excruciating pain is not conducive to healing, nor does such a state of being offer incentive to continue on in life, knowing that just through death’s door is total relief from pain. It is good to hear about people who have “graduated” from hospice, as this shows just how good hospice care can be, and that such shouldn’t necessarily be equated with death.
We have been threw this twice and our experience was similar.
All I can add is to emphasize that witholding fluids is to actively kill the patient. Medical professionals treating the elderly are taught to seek this outcome. You don’t have to approve of it.
Pain relieving drugs are a Godsend. They don’t kill the patient with them. If anything undermedicating them is more the problem. If they are in pain then you know they are undermedicated. Talk to the physician about this.
God bless you in this tough time.