Since two days he's bes bound cannot move. He pretty much sleeps the whole time. He used to walk with assistance but now cannot even get up. Cannot swallow keeps spotting food even fluids out. He's so frail that I start crying when I look at him. He's home only he was discharged from hospital 10 days back. I'm so confused should I admit in hospital? I haven't been able to contact his doctor yet. I'm afraid the hospital might be too much for him. What I read online suggssts that it is his last days and the natural procedure of dying. But I'm finding it very difficult to handle the situation. How long does he have? Is going to hospital going to do any good? What are the options? The deterioration rate in hos case is surprising and fast. Plz help.
5 Answers
Helpful Newest
First Oldest
First
ADVERTISEMENT
But anyway she was sent home unable to eat or drink or keep anything done. I too tried thickening powder but it did not help. I used sponges to keep her mouth wet as she would complain about that. We had an humidifier in her room to try to keep the coughing down to a minimum. We sat and looked at pictures and watched Halmark movies together (her favorite channel). She unlike a dementia patient was alert most of it but sleeping a lot. She would sleep about 20 of the 24 hours a day. She was dying and we all knew it so as soon as the family left, the hospice came in and offered morphine for pain relief but really to help with breathing. They assured me she had weeks left and that her breathing would be less coughfilled if I allowed morphine. My mom and me didnt know it at the time but it quickens death and would almost immediately cause a coma. Everyone said their goodbyes with my dad being the last one with her and then on the morphine drip, she fell asleep peacefully. Three hours after morphine was given, she fell asleep for the last time. That was the last time she was awake.
Hospice came the next day for a wash up. That was the day I was made to see her as a cancer patient by their comments. They left her in my care. I read to her. I sat and continued to watch movies not leaving her side. They said she had two weeks. I in my heart knew it was going to be days. The whole process that we were told would be a month after her return home from the hospital took a solid week. They told me what to expect when she was passing. The weekly time tables and they all had occured a daily events. So I sat with her and held her hand. Fell asleep by her side resting my head on her bed when I couldn't hold it up anymore. Talked to her constantly even though I knew she wasn't there. I reassured her I'd be fine but would miss her terribly. I assured her everyone loved her and would be ok. I told her I'd care for grandma so she didn't have to worry about her anymore and that all she needed to do was to go to Heaven and to adopt that cat she could never have on earth and to eat all the desserts she could as she was allergic to tree nuts and everything here has tree nut warnings on them.
The next morning her breathing was loud and labored. It was almost like a loud rattle. I turned up the humidifier but knew it wouldn't help. It was her body failing. It was still peaceful though going in and out again at a steady pace. I called hospice (I had to call hospice daily to give updates to get someone out to my house as I was given a nurse who was on vacation that week so did not have the support I should have.) and they told me to sit with her and they would send someone. No one came. The breathing continued to be like that throughout the day. The morphine drip continued and she slept on peacefully. I stayed with her through the night laying my head on her bed and holding her hand not leaving her side. I woke up, her breathing was normal but really really shallow. I had to in fact put my head against her chest to feel it but sure enough it was there slow and steady. It was so slow. I can remember staring at it willing the next breathe. I called up hospice told them I had an hour at most. They didn't believe me so no one came. I sat with her, talked more to her and waited. Sure enough 45 minutes later, her breathes were really slow. Her body was completely not moving other than these breathes.
To tell the whole story which won't be happening to you. I was caring for my grandma who was in the next room from me and my mom. The services in CT upped grandma's hours for the few weeks to give me time with my mom. The helper was in another room while grandma was next to me and she took in a deep breath and started choking unable to get her breathe. I had promised mom I'd be back and ran next door pounding on grandma's back to restart her breathing. Within a few minutes she was breathing and I rushed back to mom's side. Luckily for me she was still doing the really really slow breathing.
I started to count between breathes earlier and continued. They were so far apart I found myself holding my breath just to make sure her body could hold it that long too. I held her hand. Within two breaths of me saving grandma, mom took her last. She let out an extra puff of air after that last breath and that was it. She didn't move. I counted and held my breath but eventually had to let it out as she took no more breaths. I once again called hospice asking for them to come.
What no one tells is that you now have your deceased loved one in your house for however long it takes for someone to come pronounce dead. You don't want to call the hospital. They have to do CPR on them or so I was told so I had to depend on hospice. With no nurse on duty assigned to us no one came to declare her for 2 hours. Despite my time of 9:02, her passing was declared at 11:35 am. Meanwhile a nurse comes and cleans them up and you put on a clean nightgown. She was on a catheter which was removed. I had taken her morphine drip off her right after she passed. The only sound after she passed was the sound of that drip and it made me mad that she had passed and they were continuing to pump those awful meds into her so those were already removed by the time the nurse arrived. So the nurse pronounces her dead and makes a phone call to the funeral home of your choice. Once again you wait with your deceased loved one in the room. I sat with her for a while in tears. My dad then took a turn sitting with her. He had arrived home a few minutes after her passing but I think he was thankful he had missed it but was feeling guilty i had been alone for it. So he sat with her. Grandma kept asking what was happening as she didn't understand any of it having dementia. She kept asking for Carol and wanting to know where she was. 2 hours later the funeral home arrives. They ask us what we wanted her to wear. We gave her something then realized later on that we had given them pants and with her broken leg she had been wearing nightgowns. They probably removed her cast to put the pants on. She didn't need it anymore. They took her away leaving behind a simple red rose we had professionally dried and put in a frame with her picture in it. That was my mom's passing. It was very peaceful and in her case very fast.