I have posted on here many times and answered questions every now and then. Dad passed away Oct 7th 2013 from Liver Cancer . He was in a hospice facility for 11 days until he died. The day before he was admitted he was in the hospital and was talking,eating and very clear headed but his ammonia levels were high and he had been very combative, not eating and wouldn't take his meds for 4 days at his nursing home. ( He was in for a Psych Evaluation.) The hospice worker talked to me about admitting him instead of returning to the nursing home. I agreed to this and arrangements were made. He was transferred later that day and was alert and in good spirits. The next morning he was unresponsive and stayed that way until he passed. They gave him morphine and ativan around the clock. He never got any water but they did cleanse his mouth and moisten it with swabs. It seemed like he could hear me the first few days because I would shake his shoulder and say "dad". His eyes seemed to be moving under his eyelids and his mouth would move slightly. I did ask about them lowering his dosages so he could wake up a little. The nurse said he was getting a very small dosage already. I just wonder if the drugs made him unresponsive and if less was used he could have ate and drank and lived longer. I know it was time for him to go but I'm kinda puzzled about his going from complete alertness and straight into unresponsiveness so quick. The nurses did a Great job. I myself don't know how they do it. They treated dad like he was their baby. So gentle and compassionate. I was just wondering if anyone else had the feeling that death felt a little rushed once their loved one was placed in Hospice.
My 89 year old mother passed away on June 5, 2015. It started out that my mother was rushed to the hospital due to a low Hemoglobin count. While in the hospital she was given 3 pints of blood & a cat sca which showed a mass on her rectum as well as spots on her liver. The doctors wanted my mom to have a colonoscopy but I was against it due to her weakened state as well as her age. The doctors kept pushing us to let my mom
have this procedure and it caused a lot of friction within my family due to difference of opinions. Finally a doctor who handles hospice cases told us that there was no need for my mom to go through with the colonoscopy because she probably wouldn't make it through the cleansing part of the procedure. Meanwhile, while my mother was in the hospital they gave her 5 mg of morphine without our permission even though we asked that they not give morphine to my mother. After that she could no longer walk and her health deteriorated. The doctors then started pushing us to put my mother on home hospice care. We wanted her to have palliative care but for some reason they kept trying to push hospice care for my mother. They even sent a hospice care specialist to our home although we asked for palliative care. The person they sent had very little knowledge of palliative care. Also, my mother was always prescribed Tylenol with Codeine for her pain with back-up of the Fentanyl pain patch. Due to severe itching, my mother had to stop using the pain patch and the RN then told us to use Oxycodone and also Ativan because my mother showed signs of agitation. My mother went from being alert & eating to almost comatose & not eating at all. We watched her slowly die due to the many Oxycodone that we were told to give to her. At first they prescribed 1 five mg Oxycodone every 4 hours and then they prescribed 2 five mg Oxycodone every 2 hours along with an Ativan. We truly believe that our mother died due to an overdose of Oxycodone & Ativan. Her breathing became very labored after using the combination of the drugs and she was never the same. I'm sharing this story with everyone because I believe that Hospice Care is becoming more & more dangerous for the elderly. I believe they push death via Hospice Care and they try to drug the hospice patient as much as possible in belief that death is better than pain. Why not treat the patient to possibly take away the pain as opposed to masking it with heavy-duty drugs? I want to do something about this so that no other person will go though the pain that we are going through because we think that more treatment could have been given to our mother. I have created a Facebook page titled "Hospice=Death? I want people to post their stories there and we are going to try to get the FDA, Congress, etc. to take a look at these cases and develop a law against over-drugging an ill & elderly person. We must take a stand against this because this seems inhumane. Please help us with our quest to look out for the sick & elderly and stop Hospice Care from pushing death on the elderly by giving them deadly combinations of hard-core drugs and find a more peaceful & dignified way for our loved ones to go through their journey. Thank you!!
I'm afraid your mother was already on death's doorstep when she went to the hospital and they merely propped her up medically. She had probably been in a lot of pain for a very long time, as my mthr had been, but not admitting it to anyone because of her embarrassment. The morphine likely gave her the first comfort she'd had in years. I hope my mthr's death is as peaceful as yours was. Palliative care seeks to eliminate discomfort, and serious cancer is a painful state. From the patient's perspective, it sounds like she had a good death.
It has just been four days since you went through the trauma of watching your mother's death. No one can prepare us for watching our loved ones die. It is a helpless feeling, because each person has to cross over on their own. I do find comfort knowing that they wait for us on the other side and that they are living their lives free from the worry and pain that they had here.
Nothing was your fault or anyone's fault around you. It was the sickness that let your mother know that her time on earth was finished. I hope that soon the trauma and hurt you are feeling will fade and you will remember the happier days with your mother. It will take time to heal. Be good to yourself these next few days. We know what you are going through. Grief hurts, but it shows how devoted your heart is to the people you love.
Your mama lived a good long life. She did not want you to rescue her at the end, she wanted to shield you from the pain of her passing. She loved you and knew how hard you would take this. Go out and have a good life for her sake if not for your own. You know that is why she hid her pain, so you all would not worry about her. I imagine she said that a lot.
Would she want you to go help people who have lost a loved one? Hospice needs volunteers to visit with patients who are dying and with their families. Would you have a special talent you could share, like singing? These things bring comfort to people who are in hospice and who know the end is near. This is a way you can do something for your mama even now. ((Hugs))
Grief does leave you feeling like you can't go on sometimes, that is totally normal. But if you find you are having thoughts of harming yourself or *really* not being able to go on, call a hotline, and if it is just really getting hairy for you to cope, seriously see if you can find at least a grief support group for yourself. We all need those chances to "debrief" and they can be hard to come by.
Thank you for replying. Cassestar
Flowgo, I meant you no disrespect. Perhaps I'm projecting because I could use some counseling myself from dealing with my dad's death and the resultant issues in dealing with my mother who is a classic narcissist. It does do a number on your head.
I really do wish you the best outcome possible for you in a horrible situation. Yes, I do believe there are evil people out there. I am sorry you had to experience that. I feel even more fortunate that we had the experience we had with my dad with hospice. Each individual, each family, each illness is different. Also the quality of the education about the dying process varies from each hospice. It's apparent that some of them aren't doing their job about educating people. I'd NEVER advocate euthanasia. It goes against my morals totally. My father's dying process with brain cancer was so apparent, it came down to comfort care. That is why I am so thankful for them. I couldn't have handled his violent, AWFUL whole body seizures on my own. The Ativan and morphine calmed his horrible pain and anxiety. I wouldn't wish my worst enemy to travel that road alone.
You are correct. Be vigilant every step of the way with your loved one. My brother and I tag teamed with my dad and were there 24/7. It was grueling, but it was worth it. He died exactly 5 minutes after my brother left . He always said he wanted to die alone when he could still talk and my brother wouldn't honor that. Of course my brother was living in Europe for 30 years prior visiting every few years. Those 30 years were all on me and still are with mom.
So yeah, I know a little about dying a horrible death and elderly care and hospice. And I'm still doing it.
Once again, I'm sorry your experience with the doctors and hospice was really horrible. People need to be really careful in their choices for their loved ones. Usually it's a crisis situation and no one is prepared for the questions that need to be asked. It's called being human and not knowing everything, not being a medical professional and we need to forgive ourselves for all that happens so fast during that time.
I wish you all peace and healing. Cry a river of tears, I know I did, and time will help it hurt a little less.
By the way suggesting counselling at times of bereavement is not questioning another’s sanity. It means something completely different.
It is quite clear some feel very strongly that their loved one was wronged in some way. I totally support their right to voice their concerns. I would and have offered up a different slant on what that might be, how that might come about because having recently experienced the loss of a loved one under Hospice care I think I can pass comment. Some however are suggesting their loved ones were murdered ‘if I understand them correctly’ which is obviously shocking. If that was the case you must of course bring it to other peoples attentions but not stop here. If I believed for one second that was the case with my father I would do everything in my power to seek justice because if that is what has happened then that is what you deserve, justice.
You have my deepest sympathy and I appreciate you sharing your difficult story but I think you really should be speaking to the police.
Thanks for asking
Yes, I had a fridge full of drugs but she didn't have to take the unless I felt she needed comfort meds, which I hardly felt... the last week I really started giving her a little.... no, Hospice was a Godsend to both of us. Maybe having Hospice at home with your loved one is easier since you get to monitor/give the meds yourself?
Sorry how it turned out for you :(
However on the subject of DNR's. My poor mum was diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer, we thought on the DNR issue for a few days as it is a massive thing to have to consider esp when you are still reeling from a terminal diagnosis and the decline has really kicked in, which it had for my mum (diagnosis to death in 6 weeks). But if the situation had arisen that my mum had, say, a heart attack and had stopped breathing , would it have been right to go all out to get her heart started again only to suffer massive pain etc and die of this painful cancer? I Imagine each case is very individual but I do think DNR's have their place.
Then again I am in the UK so I do t know if our regulations are slightly different.
Flogo did you request an autopsy to determine what you believe was the cause of her death?
It was never designed to be a resource-saving policy aimed at rubbing out old people before they cost the NHS too much time or money. Unfortunately this perception became the one that prevailed, and hence the LCP was discarded for largely political reasons; so that the doctors and nurses who do the work of guiding terminally ill, frail, elderly people to a dignified and peaceful end will now once again have to work out their own route there from scratch. Let's hope they will always have the skill and the time to do it well enough to compensate for the loss of many decades' combined experience of caring for the dying.
My mom was already being pushed into dying by drug overdoses in the hospital and hospice just finished her off. She was already being killed by the hospital for no reason at all. An owner of a dog would usually not want to put a dog down just because it was old. So how could someone in their right mind do that to a human being. If anyone insisted I kill someone I would quit that job.There is no reason to force someone to die. It is up to the person to decide when they want to go and they have the right to do what they want when it comes to their life.