Pour Your Heart Out: I don't know what to do...

I feel like I should do something about the hub's grandma. She fell and fractured her pelvis and is now in the hospital, doing very poorly. The doctor is recommending hospice, which I agree with, but not everyone does. The nurse from the nursing home said that they have recommended hospice for 4 out of the last 5 patients that they have sent to the hospital. I figured that the doctors would say that, I think it may be time...I just don't know how to convince them.

"Hospice is where they kill them slowly and don't feed them". This is what the hubs uncle said. Clearly, he knows nothing about hospice...because that is not at all what they do. I worked for a hospice for 2 years and trust me, we did feed our patients, as long as they could eat. We gave them medicine to stimulate their appetite. However, as the body shuts down, it no longer requires food, it's shunting the blood to the heart, lungs and brain. Nothing else matters and the body knows this. That's why the hands and feet get cold, they stop getting blood supply. That's how the body was designed to shut down. This is a very natural process.

Trust me, this is not what I would choose, if there were a better alternative, but there isn't. The truth of the matter is that this boils down to quality, not quantity, of life. That is the hospice philosophy, not to kill patients. Hospice does NOT equal assisted suicide. It's not even close to the same thing. People do go to hospice for end of life care. They are given morphine to help with their pain. They may become addicted to the morphine, but does that really matter? If someone has a terminal disease, do they not have the right to have their pain controlled?

Now for the matter of morphine. Yes, sometimes, the morphine does cause their respirations to stop but that isn't the intention when it's given. The doctors and nurses watch the patients very carefully and try to titrate the morphine to control the pain. Sometimes, the morphine does give the patient enough relief to let go, but not always. If the patient has "unfinished business", they usually need some kind of confirmation from their family that it's okay to let go. They need to hear that, they have a right to hear that. Granted, I don't want to ever have to say those words again but I may. Hub's grandma told me today that she saw Jesus and that she wanted to go with him. I told her it was okay for her to go and then I told my father-in-law that he needed to tell her too.

It breaks my heart to have to say that to her...I don't want her to die. Even more so, I don't want her to suffer and live with pain. I want her to be happy and not hurting. I want her to have quality of life, which she did, until she fell and fractured her pelvis. If I could rewind the clock, I would. It just doesn't work that way. I wish that it did, but it doesn't. Plus, it's not my call. I don't get to decide who lives and dies and when it happens. All I can do is facilitate comfort and dignity, even in death.

I know this is very heavy stuff but it's what's on my mind and in my heart. I know that hospice is the right choice for her. It's not my decision to make though. I don't know how to tell them that it is. This doctor that is making that recommendation was very nice and very good. He gave me his personal cell phone number and told me to call him with any questions or concerns. Perhaps he can convince them...but we will see.

I just wish I knew what to say...