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[joebanks]

Went back to the doctor for the awful truth; mom's cancer has spread into her lymph nodes and her chest wall. On first glance you wouldn't notice, other than fatigue, mom shows no sign of illness. Her color is off and she is losing weight. We are going to enter her in to hospice, luckily she can stay where she is. No one wants to give me anything specific but i did get her nurse to say she would be lucky to be around in six months. I had to make calls and tell so many people the same thing today, each time harder than the last. We all knew this was coming, i'd just hoped that for once she'd have the good luck to have her heart stop in the middle of the night - because that's what counts for good luck these days.

Comments

[joebanks]

It seems the only way anything can run in this country is for it to become a profitable business. That said, my mother's hospice entity was created by three non-profit organizations that got together to pool resources. I work for a non-profit and there is still the make money mindset but, at least they don't think every cent spent on their patient/customers could have gone into someone's bank account.

My father-in-law went through hospice last year at a for-profit institution and everyone was satisfied with the care there too. There was no other option for him, he was at the end of his life and for my mother, it's to early to tell. I don't think she's taken an anti-biotic since she's been in assisted living.

As far as treatment, we were told that we could leave the hospice program at any point and reenroll if we wanted too. Again, this is very new to me and it's not home care so I can't speak to other peoples experiences.

Mom has in the past 10 or so days, been visited by a nurse three times, a nursing assistant three times, once a social worker and a chaplin; this is besides the care she gets from the staff at the nursing home.

I think anytime we are sick we should all get palliative care.