Palliative Care
So the nursing supervisor at my mother's extended care facility called bright and early this morning .
From Wikipedia:
"Palliative care (from Latin palliare, to cloak) is any form of medical care or treatment that concentrates on reducing the severity of disease symptoms, rather than striving to halt, delay, or reverse progression of the disease itself or provide a cure. The goal is to prevent and relieve suffering and to improve quality of life for people facing serious, complex illness. Non-hospice palliative care is not dependent on prognosis and is offered in conjunction with curative and all other appropriate forms of medical treatment."
In my mother's case, they're sending her out for x-rays this morning. They've run tests. She's been on an IV to hydrate her but that filled her lungs so they had to take it off and administer medication to drain her lungs. She's been poked, prodded, moved when she's obviously in pain from the move; she doesn't eat or drink (hence the IV) and says she doesn't because her stomach hurts. She is failing to thrive - the actual term is "adult failure to thrive." She can't speak clearly and often doesn't speak coherently. She's paranoid. She's delusional.
The palliative care they're talking about is removing all the diagnostic things, administering medications whether or not they're addictive, draining the lungs or hydrating her but not poking her and bruising her arms more with the IV. This sort of palliative care is end-of-life care. She ain't getting better and she probably won't. This is to make her comfortable.
And they want me to decide. She's in no shape. I still need to get her to sign paperwork to get medicaid supplement for long-term care but she's in no condition to either hear and understand or to physically sign anything.
I think it's a good idea and I'll probably give the okay. I'm thinking back to when my dad was terminally ill and in and out of the hospital back in 1971. In in January, back in March, back in May, dead in September. While he was in they denied him salt in his food because it wasn't good for him. They wouldn't give him strong enough medication because it was addicting. They had him hooked up to so many needles and tubes that my sister, the squeamish one, couldn't bear to go and see him. He couldn't shave himself so my cousin's husband came in and did it for him. He had a hard time eating the jello they gave him toward the end since he didn't eat anything else. He hated his life.
My cousin, who passed away in December, said back then that it was crazy for them not to let him have salt. It might have made him eat a little better instead of having to face saltless, tasteless hospital food. Why not make him comfortable? she asked.
I totally agree. They knew he was dying. Yet this so-called compasionate profession allowed him to suffer until the day he died. I get it, they don't go into medicine to stand back and watch people die. But there comes a point when it's going to happen. The body is shutting down, the mind is not willing to push any harder. The person's plumb tuckered out. It's time.
Might as well make it comfortable for them. Give them the salt, give them the morphine. Plump the pillows and light the furnace. My mother is, in her most essential, no longer the woman who raised me. She's old and tired and failing and her body and mind are not willing to fight on. She's buried two husbands, she's lost her only sister, all of the people who grew up with her are dying off. She's tired.
So, I think I'll call them back later on and have them write the order. She has one last x-ray today, we'll see what that says but I think it won't say anything new or hopeful.
From Wikipedia:
"Palliative care (from Latin palliare, to cloak) is any form of medical care or treatment that concentrates on reducing the severity of disease symptoms, rather than striving to halt, delay, or reverse progression of the disease itself or provide a cure. The goal is to prevent and relieve suffering and to improve quality of life for people facing serious, complex illness. Non-hospice palliative care is not dependent on prognosis and is offered in conjunction with curative and all other appropriate forms of medical treatment."
In my mother's case, they're sending her out for x-rays this morning. They've run tests. She's been on an IV to hydrate her but that filled her lungs so they had to take it off and administer medication to drain her lungs. She's been poked, prodded, moved when she's obviously in pain from the move; she doesn't eat or drink (hence the IV) and says she doesn't because her stomach hurts. She is failing to thrive - the actual term is "adult failure to thrive." She can't speak clearly and often doesn't speak coherently. She's paranoid. She's delusional.
The palliative care they're talking about is removing all the diagnostic things, administering medications whether or not they're addictive, draining the lungs or hydrating her but not poking her and bruising her arms more with the IV. This sort of palliative care is end-of-life care. She ain't getting better and she probably won't. This is to make her comfortable.
And they want me to decide. She's in no shape. I still need to get her to sign paperwork to get medicaid supplement for long-term care but she's in no condition to either hear and understand or to physically sign anything.
I think it's a good idea and I'll probably give the okay. I'm thinking back to when my dad was terminally ill and in and out of the hospital back in 1971. In in January, back in March, back in May, dead in September. While he was in they denied him salt in his food because it wasn't good for him. They wouldn't give him strong enough medication because it was addicting. They had him hooked up to so many needles and tubes that my sister, the squeamish one, couldn't bear to go and see him. He couldn't shave himself so my cousin's husband came in and did it for him. He had a hard time eating the jello they gave him toward the end since he didn't eat anything else. He hated his life.
My cousin, who passed away in December, said back then that it was crazy for them not to let him have salt. It might have made him eat a little better instead of having to face saltless, tasteless hospital food. Why not make him comfortable? she asked.
I totally agree. They knew he was dying. Yet this so-called compasionate profession allowed him to suffer until the day he died. I get it, they don't go into medicine to stand back and watch people die. But there comes a point when it's going to happen. The body is shutting down, the mind is not willing to push any harder. The person's plumb tuckered out. It's time.
Might as well make it comfortable for them. Give them the salt, give them the morphine. Plump the pillows and light the furnace. My mother is, in her most essential, no longer the woman who raised me. She's old and tired and failing and her body and mind are not willing to fight on. She's buried two husbands, she's lost her only sister, all of the people who grew up with her are dying off. She's tired.
So, I think I'll call them back later on and have them write the order. She has one last x-ray today, we'll see what that says but I think it won't say anything new or hopeful.