As the health care proxy for six elderly relatives let me suggest something to everyone: spend a few minutes and discuss how you wish to die. Because its going to happen.
The folks that work in hospice are angels on earth, and they will help you navigate this course.
And, if you are letting another relative carry this burden for you—and you know who you are—then shut up with your opinions. Get involved or move to the back of the bus. Visiting hours at the funeral home are not the place to have this discussion.
It’s ten months since I lost my husband of 55 yrs and reading this brings it all back. He was taken to the hospital with trouble breathing...they had to shock him three times to bring him back but finally he came around....was placed on ventilator for a few days. He came off of it pretty good and seemed that he might surprise everyone and make it....they jokingly called him the miracle man. He progressed to where they took him out of ICU and put on cardiac floor although his heart appeared pretty good. One day spent there and I arrive one morning to find him struggling to breathe..rang for nurse..she comes running and they call in the emergency team from ICU that floats around.....anyway back to ICU...back on ventilator for couple of days. They take him off of this and determine he needs a bi-pap machine to help breathing...okay with that...no big deal. Well his kidneys start acting up so they put port in and do dialysis a few times and determine that helped with breathing etc.
All of a sudden the nurses are taking myself and family into a room and telling me that three doctors have determined that he is too weak to make it and if he does go home it would be to hospice etc...I say okay...understand. Well, then they go into this speal of perhaps I needed to take a look at his quality of life and is this what he would want (an no he hadn’t filled out any paperwork on his wishes) So we talk to his cardio doc of 13 yrs and he tells us he thinks we need to let him go now and that it would be pain free and he wouldn’t suffer....anguish time and didn’t know what to do so decided to rely on the doctors etc....so they proceeded to take him off the bi-pap and tell me they will start a morphine drip. I ask why ..he’s in no pain...they say...don’t worry this is just to make him comfortable. I tell the nurse that I’m getting family so they can talk to him and leave the room....he is alert at this time....I returned a few minutes later and he is out cold and I immediately ask what happened and the nurse says well I gave him the morphine....he never awakened...none of us had a chance to talk to him....I held his hand until the morning when he just stopped breathing....to this day I feel like I let them kill him......I’m relaying this just to let you know that we all need to have a better understanding of just what is going on with our medical care....when one has spent three weeks in ICU with the ups and downs of problems it’s very difficult to be at a place where you are fully aware of what is going on..what they are talking about and just what it all means.....sorry this is so long......................
There is a difference between hospice and palliative care. The original article specifically deals with palliative care. There are many wonderful hospices and many angels of mercy working within both hospice and palliative care but there are also ethical lapses in both fields.