Palliative care.

I’m new to posting here but discovered this site last year and wanted to share the positive experience my husband and I had with palliative care. My impression is that it’s underutilized and not well understood. My husband had end stage renal disease and was on hemodialysis when he agreed to an evaluation last fall (I had been bringing it up for a while).

As some of you know, palliative care is for people who have serious or complicated medical issues such as heart failure, cancer, Parkinson’s, COPD. There is no required life expectancy and no treatment limitations. My husband was at a point where he did not want to be hospitalized or pursue aggressive treatment beyond dialysis and our focus was on symptom management and decreasing doctor’s visits.

His nurse practitioner came to the home every three to four weeks and he received at least an hour of individual attention. His pain was better controlled than it had been for many years along with G.I. issues, and our quality of life improved significantly. I was his only caregiver and the relief I felt to have a true medical partner was huge.

When the time came, the transition to hospice was so much easier (I may share more details if someone here with ESRD ever has questions). I had the advantage of decades working in a medical field and understanding how hospice care works. I wish I had been more familiar with palliative care when I was still working, because I would have brought it up to a lot of my home care patients. Anyway, I’ve been visiting this site since last year and wanted to share our experience.