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hello my name is robert and my wife is christine. ill try and make this short and sweet..my wife was a front end manager for albertsons for 10+ years and in that time got to know quite a bit of the community. Somewhere in the middle of that she met Bill and his wife Joyce. At the time it seemed nice enough that when they would go on trips they would bring back something from london or wherever they went to my wife. little things like sweets or a stuffed bear etc.. After awhile i was introduced to them and quickly became friends even though they were 30+years older than us.I would regularly repair their computer or do odd jobs for them they couldnt do anymore. Then about a year or two later we find out Joyce has cancer and its in her bone marrow. After fighting for a few years she lost that battle and one of her last requests is that we look after bill who was just diagnosed with PD. This was about 6 years ago. He had asked us to be his care givers and wanted to put us as benificiary for his estate as they did not have any kids or relatives that were still alive. So we went through the attourney he had and had all the POA,MPOA,HIPPA and all the will documents drawn up. At that time he stated to the attourney that he did not want any heroic measures done to keep him alive and had a DNR drawn up from his DR. He had told us that if he cant feed and clothe and care for himself that he didnt want to live and absolutely no artificial food source to be given also he dosent want to get on a pneumonia(SP?) roller coaster either. we see him every night for dinner and take care of all his financial issues. and have noticed in the last 6 months a big change for the worse. I go to all his DR appointments and keep track of all his meds but he is at the max dose of allot of the meds and is starting to choke on his food and has lost 10-12 lbs in the last 6 months. so here is my question.....do we follow his wishes and if we do is there legal issues we need to know about.We do have hospice comming in 3 times a week for bath and 2times a month for house cleaning etc. So we broke his first rule already but where do we draw the line?? |
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Hi Robert ... Welcome to the forum.... My first thought is to contact the attorney who drew up all the papers. He will answer any legal questions. I'm sure you have the right to stop a feeding tube but i don't believe you would be allowed to just let him not have any nutrition if the choking and swallowing is that bad. Also get with the hospice, they know the right things and the right timing. As far as his weight loss it doesn't seem that dramatic unless he's already only about 90lbs. My guy lost a lot more then that in a shorter time period. There are things you can do to help with the choking and swallowing issues. We have only had isolated choking and swallowing issues so we are not to that point yet but there are folks here who can help you with that. Hang in there with us... i'm sure someone else can help you more........ |
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Hi, Robert - We, too, have only isolated choking issues. With my spouse, I would probably try to go to a more liquid diet that may be easier to swallow and in smaller doses. I've been to several hospice discussions and they say that losing weight is part of the "process" and eventually a person who is toward the end of their life will naturally lose weight and consume less as their body requires less and less to function. They said that forcing what we consider a "normal" amount of food on a person who is in the final stages, is actually more harmful for them. I agree with the wise post preceding mine about consulting the lawyer who helped draw up the papers to wade through legal questions. |