Hospice vs Palliative care

But you won't be THERE to know about these things.


What makes you think they won't cope?


Have you survived grief?

Are they weaker than you?

Grief is awful, but mainly we survive and get on with it.

misunderstood your question----I guess the answer is nothing.

when my grandfather was 97 he was sitting in the garden one morning and had a heart attack, my grandmother called 911 and they came and took him to the hospital, they put him in a bed and asked if he needed anything. He said "yes, I need one pork chop, two eggs fried, a dish of cottage cheese, a sliced tomato and some coffee", then he died. Seems like a good exit to me. (I hope someone got to eat his breakfast)

I wish HE had gotten to eat his breakfast!

For what it's worth, I think your answer was very honest. Of course you worry about what will happen to those closest to you. It's perfectly natural.

You should talk to Diane about these things, if you haven't already.

Much love ...

I had an uncle who got all dressed up in his best suit and tie, then went to a dance at the senior center. He danced with several women he knew and liked, then sat down to take a breather...put his head down on the table and died. I've always thought that would be a great way to go.

You want to dance with several women you know before you die?

It is almost midnight here...it's awfully late to be so literal, dadpad!

That wouldn't be so bad.

Or I could go the way my mother did. She sat down on the edge of her bed one morning to get dressed to go to her volunteer job at a hospital gift shop. Had a massive coronary, leaned back across the bed, and was gone before she knew what happened. She was putting on her dreaded pantyhose at the time. She hated them and always said they would kill her some day. She was right.

No, I take that back. I wouldn't want to be killed by pantyhose. I'd rather dance with women.

Sorry for the digression, Dys.

Back to you....

no doubt I'm bungling up what I mean to say here but taking a stab at it anyway; receiving Hospice is in a very real sense receiving permission to die, there is, at least in my mind, some sort of social expectation that a good person will fight on with all effort possible to avoid dying, that expectation is a great stress in itself so, having permission to die is a major stress relief in itself.

A good hospice group can ''give permission'', can help people find acceptance, and can be a buffer against the people who want to force someone to fight fight fight - when fighting isn't the answer.

I've got a lot of respect for people who choose hospice - as service providers and clients.

I have no objection to "going gently into that good night" but I don't like the guilt of doing so.

I don't think any of us are ready to "go" - we all have loved ones whom we
care deeply about and wonder what will happen to them. This is essentially
the biggest scare we have of dying.

Guilt.

Big one eh. Coming to terms with someone's end of life choices can be really hard.

I sure would have loved mrs hamburger to live longer, but she made her choices and the rest of us had to deal with them - are still dealing with them. I think her family doctor was really the one who took it hardest - and is still having a bad time of it - when she made it clear that she wasn't going to make the choices he wanted her to.

Talking helped. We knew we had a pretty short timeline in front of us all when mrs hamburger got her diagnosis, so there was some pretty intense talking that happened relatively quickly. I think it helped her - to some degree - that she'd caused some other people to talk more as well.

Making her feel any kind of guilt for making her choices wasn't in the books for me - but it was a hard internal fight for me.

My brother was a hospice "client" for 4 years, during that time he had 3 brain surgeries (none theraputic-all for pain relief) following each surgery his pain increased, I believe he finally died from the pain.
guilt is a "killer" but that was a minor element of my hospice meeting thursday. I think it should have a greater import. Lady Diane has been wonderful about minimizing my guilt which doesn't mean she isn't suffering (probably more than me)

I seem to be fixated of the "guilt for dying" thing today but as I think more about it there really does seem to be some thinking that allowing oneself to die is a moral weakness which equates to "suffering is a positive sign of strength" perhaps I'm reacting to the nasty wind blowing today, that always seems to get me down.

Religious folk seem to push the strength in suffering view.

I think there's more strength in understanding, believing in and communicating your own needs.

It's not always bad to be selfish.

This "guilt in dying" business has gotten me thinking. (You always churn up my decaying gray matter, dys).

No guilt. It never occurred to me. No close loved ones either. So your feelings relate to your concern for others, not yourself, as you said.

I think (for what it's worth) that you gotta do what's best and right for you. I think you get to a point where you're allowed to be selfish.

I had a dear friend who was dying. She didn't want phone calls or visits. When she died, she had left instructions--no funeral. She was cremated, and her ashes were strewn somewhere. I still feel bad--and a little angry--that I didn't get to say good-bye. So what. She went out the way she wanted to. I have great respect for that.

As for not fighting as a sign of weakness, I say bullfeathers. I don't see staying alive as a fight. I see it as a natural, instinctive reaction to forces that are taking you the other way. When you're too weak or too tired to continue hanging on, you let go. No weakness. Just dealing with reality.

The only thing I am doing, at my old age of 81, is medical treatment to avoid suffering from a stroke that leaves me alive but mentally and physically damaged. If I have a stroke, I want to die immediately. My daughter and son and doggies Dolly and Madison are taken care of and I love them enough to have no reason to burden them with a wounded mother.

BBB