End of Life Care

My stage 4 husband was on his last hospital visit at UPenn in April 2012. He had so much water in his legs that the skin ripped. As doctors were trying to figure out what caused the accumulation, we had several ‘support’ staff members pop in and out of the room. We had a do-resuscitate order on file and he was still getting weekly infusions of a tumor growth inhibitor.

His oncologist let him try it as a last resort and experimental treatment, but success was a big question mark. Needless to say, the team of attending doctors and oncologists was not very pleased with him being on any treatment and made it a point to swing by the room at least once a day. Purpose of that daily torment was to get him to sign the papers for going into hospice. They argued that his body could no longer tolerate weekly chemo injections and that the water accumulation in his legs was due to the body not being able to handle the tumor load.

A very angry Ken made it a point to refuse any services and eventually said he did not want to talk to anymore doctors. That’s when I came in and asked them to run his labs and give us a picture about organ failure. The labs revealed that despite all the horror his organs still worked pretty well. I pleaded to discharge him and let him fight as long as his body has the stamina to do so. They reluctantly gave in and got him ready for discharge. (This was about a 4 days ordeal….initially we went into the ER due to his legs swelling up like balloons.)

As a last resort the hospital send us a social worker. She was probably in her late 20s and had a very nice demeanor. She looked polished and was very informative.

Now, just to set the mood here, we had fought for about 4 days with doctors for treatment, hospice, discharge etc. We were already in a bad mood and Ken had about had it and did not want to discuss any home treatment. All he wanted was a prescription for the leg press to get the water out his legs. He asked me to do the talking….

Back to our social worker…. the girl was sweet and as I mentioned very informative but it was very hard to focus on anything she had said. Her cleavage was about the size of a crater. I kept wondering if at some point during this conversation they would fall out. I battled between looking at that and trying to focus on the suggested ‘home care’. Eventually I simply asked for brochures and her card and told her we would process it within a few days. The second she left the room, we broke out into laughter. We had not laughed at all during those 4 days but that woman really made our day 🙂 We joked that she would be better off as a hospice worker and give dying people a last look.