My two sisters and I have been working with our 96 year old mother and medical professionals to determine the best course of action going forward. My mom is facing a below knee amputation due to extremely poor circulation. Her foot is gangrenous and an immediate permanent decision has to be made. Either leg amputation or hospice. Mom has some dementia and lives in a long term care facility. Her over all is good with only high blood pressure. Mom was accepted by hospice but there is a lot of second guessing going on.
As someone else has pointed out, your Mother may have some health problems that have led to the poor circulation and gangrene.
Does she have the awareness and energy to make this decision for herself? If her dementia has progressed to where you need to make the decision, maybe it's best to "let nature take its course before anything worse happens"
Panderson
Oct 7, 2020
Mom decided to stick with hospice and not have the amputation. She was clear and firm with her choice. Thank goodness with hospice.
The original poster has said that her mom has decided not to have the amputation.
I did the impossible to save it, wanted to move him to another hospital, but he refused. It's been very, very tough for him. I'm not sure how a 96yo lady could survive both the surgery and rehabilitation. It's not easy. If you can avoid it, it would be better.
I understand it's a very tough decision cause we want to know we did the very best, sometimes the best is to surround them with love as much as we can.
Sending you strength, and a hug.
should be replaced. He is not a good candidate for
surgery, based on his age. The docs feel that he would be in more Discomfort post surgery and he would have an awful time healing. I personally would never encourage any surgery for my dad.
Mentioned it in another post/thread - I know that the paperwork to prepare for all the POAs, trusts, etc included a number of pages where different medical scenarios were listed along with choices for care. Oddly NONE of these were provided with the documents. What good are they in the atty's office? I knew neither parent wanted extensive treatment, so I was okay with saying NO surgery. More recently was a stroke. She was refusing transport to ER, so they called me. My final word was if they could convince her to go and have testing, fine, otherwise no and definitely NO hospitalization! Her final word was NO, so they brought in OT and PT to work with her with hopes to strengthen the right side, at least to help eating, and perhaps pivoting (she was already a 2 person transfer, OT reported at least once it was 3 person!)
Jackie
I think that we forget that when we become caregivers to our elderly loved ones.
Thank you for the reminder.
her quality of life won’t improve after the surgery
She went into at home hospice in July. We are now in Oct she is close to death. I cannot tell you if I would do the same thing again. Shes 90.