My sister is going to fly in and will be in town when we meet with the Hospice Doctor and Head Nurse who will assess my Dad and make sure the palliative care is serving his needs.
When the visit happens, it’s been one day since I last saw my Dad and he’s weak and his throat looks swollen. We know he’s lost nearly 25 pounds in less than 3 weeks. I’m sure we made the right choice, if the teeth cleaning didn’t wipe him out, the insertion and additional tests needed to put in the feeding tube might have.
We go over the good outcome path and the complication outcome path. We do know my Mom isn’t strong enough to really help my Dad, so we discuss bringing in additional care. From experience, we know my Mom will kick them out.
We ask the Assisted Living facility to up the visits to my parents room to every two hours. We hope this might be enough because the risk of falling for my Dad is a very great possibility and will only add complications to his care. Our only other option is to put him in their in-patient facility, but I wanted to try to keep my parents together which keeps both of them more stable. Tested.