Have any of you experienced GI bleed with your very old? MIL had a heavy bleed yesterday. We have been in the hospital since. There has been no action until just a few minutes ago. The look on the nurses face was different with the second round. I will be talking with the GI doc shortly, however, I was wondering if anyone else has experienced this? I am very reluctant to do any type of procedures. She is already in decline, dementia, weak. But I need to hear some of the thought process from someone who has walked this path before. Thanks in advance for sharing your experience.
We are here another night. Will talk to GI in the morning. Any other advice is welcome.
I think you're on the "right track" though - get more information, assess the situation, but don't make decisions until you have all the facts.
I wouldn't rely too much on the look on the nurses' faces, especially with a succeeding round. They might just have inherited some followup work from the previous round and not been in a particularly good mood. They're trained to keep their emotions in check as to patients' conditions though.
I think you can kind of "generalize" your path forward from this statement you made:
"She is already in decline, dementia, weak." The questions would be how serious is the bleed, can it be stopped/repaired/contained, and if so, and what are the likelihoods of success, or repeat, and/or of less positive responses? How invasive would the procedure be? What will happen if the surgery isn't done, and what are the options for the consequences of that?
And, the age-old question, what would the doctor do if this was her or his mother?
Make sure that you and any visiting family or friends take enough down time for yourselves that you feel refreshed if you have to make any decisions.
This stuff is very challenging. We have activated PoA. We just moved them to memory care a few months ago (y’all may remember my calls for help with the move, lol.) It has been going well. But FIL is beside himself because she is not in the facility (when he remembers). They are both in their 90s with significant Alz/dementia. It seems like the need to make tough choices is unending.
Looks like one more night in the hospital. Very lucky though... she has no pain and the staff here has demonstrated a much higher awareness of dementia issues than I have experienced before. It is such a relief to not have to explain everything in great detail.
The doc won't do anything "heroic" . Talk to them before your mom goes in for any tests. If someone there has POA, is she bad enough that you'd need to put that in action?
I'd be reluctant to OK ANY procedures beyond keeping QOL...septic shock from a perforated bowel is a horrible death. I hope you can keep your MIL in relative comfort.