The wake, funeral and burial for my aunt are this weekend. She passed away on December 19th and I still feel a particular way about the hospice care. I still think they took her out. They took the opportunity to let the fluid in her legs build until it got in her lungs. Instead of getting rid of the fluid they gave her morphine basically to make her comfortable and lorazepam to relax her while she just died. Don't get it twisted...I had no delusions that a frail 82 year old would survive pancreatic cancer. However, I think it was tasteless to do nothing for her and allow her to die just before the holidays. At the time my aunt had edema. Treatable. My aunt also was with the hospice since April. At 77 pounds people just knew she would die within a month. She lasted a lot longer. The nurse assigned to her knew of her resilience so she was removed. As soon as the new nurse came on the family had resistance and got the usual speech "we are just trying to make her comfortable". No more than a week after the new nurse got on board my aunt was dead. Yes, there is a possibility she would have died soon anyway, but not the way she ended up dying. I wonder how much of a bonus the nurse got.
Moral of the story: Hopefully your family member doesn't have to go through any suffering. But while people are alive, as uncomfortable as the conversation may be, talk about how they want to be treated and how they want to go. Try to have a strong advocate on your behalf and your loved ones. Try to avoid having the provider take complete control
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