The Next Step — Hospice

My father’s nurse came and discharged him from the nursing service today. It’s not so much that he’s doing well but that they can’t do more for him — they are a temporary service to help recently hospitalized people learn to deal with their infirmities and the various aids necessary to keep them going. My father really doesn’t have any such aids except oxygen, which he’s been using for several years, and a pacemaker he’s had for six years. He wasn’t interested in physical therapy or any other services they offered except the nurse’s assistant who cleaned and groomed him. He is capable of doing it himself, he just doesn’t want to because it tires him. (When he forgets that he’s old and tired, he romps around without his walker or oxygen, sometimes for more than an hour at a time. )

So the next step is hospice. I didn’t know anyone could apply to hospice — I always thought the patient’s doctor had to prescribe it. My father’s doctor has been uncooperative, insisting that my father isn’t dying. Perhaps he isn’t dying, but he’s losing weight, doesn’t want to eat, doesn’t want to do much of anything except sleep and pray. (Personally, I think he’s bored, but it’s almost impossible to get someone interested in doing anything unless they want to.)

My sister went to talk to hospice today, and when she explained the situation, they said our father was a perfect candidate for hospice. Apparently there are other ways of getting on hospice than having your personal physician prescribe the service. The people at hospice said that if his doctor didn’t release him, they would send a doctor to examine him and sign the prescription. Like with everything medical these days, it’s a matter of hurry up and wait, but still, we’ve got the ball rolling. (Do you think I should have added another cliché, or is that enough to get my point across?)

I’m not sure how I feel about this. I want hospice here, of course. I can’t do everything my father needs (I simply do not want to bathe him, though many daughters do that service for their aged paternal parent). Besides, my father cannot continue going to his doctor — the guy makes his patients wait for several hours, and that is too taxing for an old man. My problem is that although this hospice is the one we had for my mother and so my father wants them, I was unimpressed (they and my father kept my mother hopped up and delusional on vicodan even though she had no pain, and they were rather surly when I insisted — rightly — that she be taken off the drug). And these are the same people who kicked me out of their grief support group and threatened to call the police if I returned. I do not have good feelings about them at all.

I’m hoping to talk my sister into staying so she can deal with the hospice people, but if not, well, I’ll worry about that when the time comes.

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Pat Bertram is the author of the suspense novels Light Bringer, More Deaths Than One, A Spark of Heavenly Fire, and Daughter Am I. Bertram is also the author of Grief: The Great Yearning, “an exquisite book, wrenching to read, and at the same time full of profound truths.” Connect with Pat on Google+. Like Pat on Facebook.

Tagged: hospice, hospice and the aged, signing up for hospice