Wednesday, January 26, 2005
If I may please have another moment...
...I am still processing. Yes, I do have stats of a sort for the rest of yesterday. I'm going to continue posting daily meals, meds and bowel movements.
I feel that we have turned a corner. I know exactly when it happened,and Mom's aware of it, too: When the FNP said, "It's a pleasant way to die..." and went on to describe exactly what is happening to Mom. I know Mom heard it. She didn't react in the office. There is something, though, about the way we're now interracting in small ways with one another...we're more sturdy with each other. We're both more relaxed, as though we looked around, took note of our environment and are now at home in it.
I remember the FNP making a distinction between treatments for comfort and reasonable life extension, which are to be favored, and treatments that will prolong her life at a cost with the addition of suffering, which MCF, dialysis tech that she is, interpreted for me as meaning, "No dialysis, unless it is temporary and allows her to leave the hospital in comfort."
While talking with the FNP I mentioned that my plan of attack, until we find out if the freeze is off the veteran's hospital, is to bring her to Banner myself if I feel that emergency treatment is needed and keep her PCP office and medical providers in Mesa as her Primary Care Providers. I said that I would not trust her to Yavapai Regional Medical Center again because they "did nothing" both times.
"There may come a time," the FNP said, "when you will appreciate and want that low key response. Don't write them off, yet."
I understood immediately what she meant. I think I will call the hospital and see we if we can come to some reasonable arrangement regarding my mother and her primary care medical providers in Mesa. If necessary, I would also like to have her transfused up here.
For the time being the goals are:
...later.
I feel that we have turned a corner. I know exactly when it happened,and Mom's aware of it, too: When the FNP said, "It's a pleasant way to die..." and went on to describe exactly what is happening to Mom. I know Mom heard it. She didn't react in the office. There is something, though, about the way we're now interracting in small ways with one another...we're more sturdy with each other. We're both more relaxed, as though we looked around, took note of our environment and are now at home in it.
I remember the FNP making a distinction between treatments for comfort and reasonable life extension, which are to be favored, and treatments that will prolong her life at a cost with the addition of suffering, which MCF, dialysis tech that she is, interpreted for me as meaning, "No dialysis, unless it is temporary and allows her to leave the hospital in comfort."
While talking with the FNP I mentioned that my plan of attack, until we find out if the freeze is off the veteran's hospital, is to bring her to Banner myself if I feel that emergency treatment is needed and keep her PCP office and medical providers in Mesa as her Primary Care Providers. I said that I would not trust her to Yavapai Regional Medical Center again because they "did nothing" both times.
"There may come a time," the FNP said, "when you will appreciate and want that low key response. Don't write them off, yet."
I understood immediately what she meant. I think I will call the hospital and see we if we can come to some reasonable arrangement regarding my mother and her primary care medical providers in Mesa. If necessary, I would also like to have her transfused up here.
For the time being the goals are:
- To manage her for comfort and maximum alertness, as much as this is possible without creating irritation and frustration;
- No more torture in the name of diagnosis and treatment;
- Keep an eye on her to make sure she doesn't fall and evaluate treatments from the standpoint of keeping her reasonably balanced on her feet, and;
- Foremost, allow my mother to determine her own timetable.
...later.
