“I think it’s easier when your loved one passes in the hosptal.”
And here in lies one of the great problems in medical costs. Very large amounts of the medical costs occur in the last 6 months of life. My mother and late husband both insisted that they did not want to die in a hospital, so I cared for them in their final months/years. In both cases there was medical supervision in that doctors agreed that nothing could be done to reverse the dying process, it could only be drawn out by tube and intravenous feeding and the like. They set me up with home nurse visits in the last weeks.
My husband was Scots/American and VERY thrifty. He did not want money he had worked for all his life to go to some hospital/doctor. He wanted it to be preserved for his children/grandchildren. For the last 3 years of his Alzheimers he was totally dependent on me as he could not go out and find his way home. We had checked on an Alzheimers nursing facility in 2001. They wanted $57,000 a year as long as he was ambulatory, and a lot more if he became bedridden. In all, our decision probably saved the family over $200,000, a fair bit of which would have been paid by health insurance.
People need to learn how to accept death and care for the ones they love. It is too easy to palm this off on an impersonal institution and let someone else pay for it.
Look, you have my personal opinion based on experience.
My Dad lasted six days after surgery at Johns Hopkins. It was hard. I knew his surgery (to remove his throat from cancer) was hard...but we didn’t expect the disaster that happened. However, it was....well.....it happened...he’d coded several times because he finally went for good....
...I’m saying that was (personally) easier...
Than getting the call from my grandmother....(I had missed a couple calls still sleeping)...and then it occurred to me...I was getting THREE CALLS...wake up! And my grandmother said...”Your mom is dead. You need to go to ...(the name of the assisted living she was at)..” And I called them and said it was me and the said , “You need to come down here”.....and I said, “Is she gone?”
They said yes. They didn’t want to tell me, but I made them.
So I went down...and the nurses there were great at holding on to me as I went in her room...I told them I’d worked in the ER and I was ready...
....but....you know, when your mom is on the floor soiled and inelegant....with a purple face....it’s NOT something that you are easily going to put out of your mind......
I wish, that she had died in a hospital bed.
I wish I didn’t have to think that (the phone was on the floor) oh...did she try to call me? What was she thinking?
There’s more to the story....but at least...when my brother dumped her here peniless ten years after my dad died.....
I have her wedding ring. He called me and said he wants it.....he got EVERYTHING else.....
I spent my limited money on Mom...he spend Mom’s money on him....
....it’s hard. but still...
I WISH she had died in a hospital....because I have nightmares about how I last saw her.
Now...I know...she walked into God’s arms quickly and painlessly....but
it’s hard.