My meeting with the Death Panel.

vanity | 04/01/2012 | chuckles

[freedommom]

Your post brings back memories of my mom and her last days.

My mom had a stroke in 2008 and they inserted a feeding tube.
After a day or so they ran tests and said she was not able to swallow.

The Dr told us she would go into a coma and would die in 3 days.
We were caring for her at her home (you lose a lot of rights when you allow government nurses to visit from time to time).

He stated he was going to remove the feeding tube and she was to go home and receive hospice care until her death.

This was the hardest thing ever for our family. She did slip into a coma.
We decided from the start that our mother was never going to be alone and there was always a family member at her side till the end.

She lived for 28 days without food and water!

My 2 sisters and I were there with her and about 15 minutes
before this happened my sisters dog came in the room (she had never done this before) and looked my mom's way for about a minute tranfixed. She got under the hospital bed
exactly right under my mom.
About 5 minutes before we realized my mom had passed the dog abruptly got up and turned and looked at my mom for about a minute and then left.
What was that all about I don't know.

[WorkingClassFilth]

I agree with the experience and conclusions of most of your post. My mother recently came home after a three month stint in the ER—>nursing home system beginning with triple pneumonia. After two days in the hospital, she was put on a ventilator. From that point, things tended to go downhill through what I would call benign neglect. Her naso-gastric tube was found to be misplaced and she had been without nutrition for three days. After failed attempts to place it again, she went without nutrition again for three days.

If not for family involvement (a physician and an OT among us) I firmly believe she would have been allowed to pass. The casualness of her treatment and default points were clear and less medically informed families would have been clueless. She is 88 and, arguably, she has had a long, full life. However, with intensive family involvement, proper medical care and very hard work on her part, she is now back and living about 80% of what she was before the episode. I suspect, though don't have evidence, that policies and attitudes regarding care and cost are already in place - cultural death panels, if you will.

The culprit, IMPO, is our loss of Judeo-Chiristian values, due in large part, to gub’mint via the separation of church and state myth. After that, factor in defacto gub’mint control of medicine already via dollars spent /not spent in medicare and medicaid. Finally, thanks to gub’mint, the devalued dollar combined with escalating medical costs (again, gub’mint and lawyers) tend to drive the economic sterility of a utilitarian policy philosophy.

Paging Doctor Peter Singer...paging Doctor Peter Singer...

[tbw2]

Part of this problem may be the low reimbursement rates of Medicaid and Medicare - they cannot afford to provide quality care when paid so little. The major problem, though, is that employer based health insurance typically stops paying for your care past age 65, saying you have to sign up for Medicare.
A partial solution for individuals would be:
1. Don’t sign up for Social Security, so you don’t get stuck in Medicare / death-care.
2. Get long term care insurance so you don’t have to use Medicaid to pay for a nursing home (so better quality care in a nursing home).
3. Get private health insurance that covers you as an elder OR sign up for a medical sharing ministry (to meet insurance requirements) OR self-insure for medical costs (lots of savings).

[Caipirabob]

I am so sorry for your loss. Prayers up to her, you and yours...

[Stegall Tx]

Part of this problem may be the low reimbursement rates of Medicaid and Medicare - they cannot afford to provide quality care when paid so little.

Thank you for posting this. I have been astounded that my mother keeps finding good doctors who are willing to essentially treat her for nothing. Of course, they are overcharging their regular patients in order to give my mother her treatments at Medicare rates.

[elcid1970]

I’ll soon be 64 and I am convinced that I will not enjoy the `luxury’ of death by natural causes.

Oh well, most of us Vietnam vets still know how to shoot.

;^)

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

A serious suggestion to everyone with elderly and/or disabled parents: America has been becoming increasingly toxic to the elderly and disabled, and it will almost certainly become much, much worse, no matter who is in charge, for several reasons.

Government involvement in health care, the baby boomers all coming of age, a general lack of people willing to care for geriatrics in medicine, and a huge lack of people to do the day to day maintenance. Add to this collapsing medical ethics that views suicide and homicide as good alternatives to the “hassle” of continuing care.

So it is time to consider “The Mexican Option”. Don’t just dismiss this in an offhand manner.

Mexico’s health care is a lot more capitalistic than health care in the US. Their medical schools do not intentionally restrict the numbers of doctors they graduate, like schools in the US, and they have an abundance of skilled nurses and a great abundance of nurses aides and other workers.

And a large percentage of them speak English. So what does Mexico offer that the US does not?

1) Far less expensive, but capable surgeries, diagnosis and treatment. Far less expensive hospitalization and nursing home, as well as ordinary retirement housing. Far less expensive pharmaceuticals.

2) Much more, and less expensive, medical labor, so that there is a team of people for just a few patients, especially to take care of the little things that matter like cleaning, laundry, food preparation, even around-the-clock sitting.

3) Respect for the elderly and infirm. Mexican families almost never send their older members to nursing homes, as this is culturally discouraged as disrespectful. They also have a much better regard for the elderly as a whole, so tend to be good caregivers, unlike much of the care found in the US.

4) The ridiculously high expense of nursing home care in the US is so bad, that some elderly and at least partially ambulatory people have figured out that for about the same money, they can lead much better lives aboard cruise ships. Better food, adequate medical care from the ships medical staff, maid service, etc. Opposed to sitting in a wheelchair for hours every day staring at a painted block wall, or lying in bed staring at the ceiling.

[azishot]

Will remember your mother, you and your family in my prayers. Thank you for sharing with us.

[Paleo Conservative]

4) The ridiculously high expense of nursing home care in the US is so bad, that some elderly and at least partially ambulatory people have figured out that for about the same money, they can lead much better lives aboard cruise ships. Better food, adequate medical care from the ships medical staff, maid service, etc. Opposed to sitting in a wheelchair for hours every day staring at a painted block wall, or lying in bed staring at the ceiling.

My mom is moving to a retirement community that is like a an apartment complex combined with a country club plus a skilled nursing facility. The Executive chef previously was in charge of food service on cruise ships and appeared on more than 100 episodes of Martha Stewart.

[SaraJohnson]

I am so sorry you went through this carelessness and lost your mom. Thanks for the heads up.

[petercooper]

bttt

[E. Pluribus Unum]

My mother died in 92 and the care was better then, that is only twenty years ago!

The more control the federal government has over the health care system, the worse it gets.

Just wait until they have total control.

[WildHighlander57]

Paleoconservative, all

Your stories echo what happened to my mom. She fell and got a subdural hematoma. She aspirated somthing because the fall affected her swallowing. She had other conditions (kidney and lung) that got aggravated by the injury. The doctors pressured me to put her into the subacute wing of the hospital in spite of one of the conditions requiring hospitalization ( subacute is not a nursing home, its the stage in between ) I had POA and pushed back, but to no avail. She had COPD that got worse... they then pushed her out from subacute into a nursing home. They couldn’t find a home that had enough percent oxygen so they ended up hooking TWO oxygen concentrators together in order to give enough air to her.
She died a week after going into the nursing home.
That was ten year’s ago......I am still angry about it. The subacute facility had the nerve to have a big display showing a young lady that had had a similar injury and the facility had given her hyperbaric treatments which cured her.

[winkadink]

Thanks for sharing with us. I am 80 years old (young?) and have COPD. No cure there. And I will remember your mother and you in my prayers.

I am sorry you lost your Mother. I lost my Mom several years ago and still miss her. I wish you and your family good memories of her.

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

The bottom line is pricing. How much will that set her back, and take into account Medicare and insurance, both of which may be drying up soon.

It may not be a bad idea that, assuming the worst, which in this case is increasingly likely, that you all have a ‘plan B’ and a ‘plan C’.

[fella]

“we already have Obama Care. It’s been here for awhile now.”

So true.

Please forgive my crudeness for the truth is often told in jest.

However with “Zero-Care” the system is streamlined and highly improved, in a MBA-think sort of way, that not only improves the governments bottom line so that more of it’s ‘care’ can be doled out to more retired people but will allow those who “complete their treatment” to ‘will’ their real and personal property to the governments’ proxies for redistribution. All for the greater good.

On a side note; “Zero-Care” is greatly interested in Hollands’ highly inovative moble euthansia units. To be called “Specialized Natural Unliving Facilatating Forces” or “SNUFF” in the United States.

[Student0165]

I am so sorry about your mom, chuckles. I can hear your frustration and your pain in your post. Your post brought tears to my eyes.

[Rides_A_Red_Horse]

I’m sorry for your loss.

It’s one thing to let someone pass without “heroic measures.” Letting them deteriorate through neglect is something completely different.

The bastards won’t be satisfied until we mirror North Korea in every way.

[Shery]

Thanks for the post. Moving back to the US after 26 years of federal service as educators in military kids’ schools, we are finding this out, as well. No one wants to take Medicare age people.

Fortunately for my mother-in-law, who has had a recent hip surgery and now will have to go for another procedure, the doctor has been very willing to take her and do what it takes to get her back on her feet...at the age of 86. She’s always been independent and wants that back, if at all possible. I am so grateful she has a doctor that sees her as a person, regardless of her age! And, yes, prayer does help!

[Mike Darancette]

Chuckles?