:(My father just came out of surgery to remove a bladder stone, he apparently disconnected himself from the monitoring equipment and signed himself out AMA.
Since then he has been vomiting and dry heaving non-stop, I talked to him five minutes ago and he had to run to the toilet to vomit. He hasn’t had anything to eat or drink in 24 hours plus, he can’t keep the pain medication down and is in pain. Oh AND he has explosive diarrhea!
My mother will not listen to me and neither of them is taking this seriously, she was just in walmart and I begged her to purchase some OTC anti nausea medication, and some Immodium or generic loperimide and some gatorade for him.
She did none of that and said they don’t want to be taking drugs like crazy.:smack:
My wife thinks they are both half senile or something by how casually they are taking severe dehydration. I even told her if they are not going to even try to handle this at home get back to the ER or hospital now but no she says my father doesn’t want to.
Are they reasonably friendly with their neighbors? Can you track one of the neighbors down to check on your parents (and possibly get some sense into them)?
They are in their 70s, I’d be worried about calling the police because it might just stop them telling me anything. My father is lucid but sounds horrible, he blames it on congestion.
They promised me if he doesn’t get better by tomorrow they will go back to the hospital, I told them there is no point waiting if they aren’t going to do anything they might as well go now.
Could be a reaction to his pain meds. I wonder if you call the hospital if they’d send a nurse to check on him? Or perhaps their church or an aging group, Red Cross? Some larger cities might have a hotline for just this thing. They wouldn’t have to say they showed up because you called.
ffs, your father is in trouble. Call the police, human services (they have an old agers department, but I can’t remember what it’s called). Get off the internet and go figure it out.
There’s little the police can do while they are lucid. A neighbor lady of mine was almost blue, she was breathing really heavily and not evenly. I called the police and they went over and an ambulance came and she refused help. They just left and told me if I wanted to help, find a relative to coax her to the hospital.
Fortunately I got a hold of her daughter in Upstate NY and she flew into Chicago and got her mother into the hospital. She was put directly into intensive care and remained their for a month. She eventually got better, but at no time was she not in full control of her faculties.
There’s not much the authorities can do while a person is aware and refusing help. But that doesn’t mean you can’t try.
Don’t worry about it. They know what they’re doing. (What they want).
You reach a point in life when the cons outweigh the pros. * Want to live twenty more years—hooked up to tubes coming out of your body?* Or go home and eat your last Dorito and die.
Choices.
Your mother was just being polite to you in Walmart because other people could hear.
You’re not responsible. You’re not guilty.
You are not a part of their marriage, and like most married couples they have an unspoken (or maybe talked about) pact. They know what it is and it’s none of your concern. I’m not saying they don’t love you; you just can’t be a part of their Exit Stage Left, when they choose when that’s to be.
Don’t freak. It won’t change anything and it’s like whining mosquitos to the ears of a hard-headed senior.
I might get slammed about this opinion. I’m not a Certified Anything except a human being who has “survived” some health crises that could fell an elephant. I know what my choice would be (irrelevant) and also know that if you ain’t walked down that road, don’t try to lead the way.
Unless you’re in a position to drive over to their house, strongarm your dad into a car, and have him declared legally incompetent, there’s nothing you can do. He’s an adult and, as such, has the right to make his own medical decisions–no matter how stupid they may turn out to be. Until he loses consciousness, of course.
However, you could try to emotionally coerce them into going back to the hospital. Pretend you’re going to fly out in the morning if they don’t take him to the ER.
If he wanted to go home and die, why would he be getting surgery in the first place? Also, I don’t think her father’s at the stage of die or live hooked up to tubes if all he’s got is surgery for a bladder stone. This is hardly terminal.
They’re both grownups, they have a right to make their choices. Unless they are judged incompetent or their decisions threaten someone else in a clear and present way, there’s nothing that any authority will want to do.
Just keep lines of communication open, and hopefully they’ll continue to be able to access 911 or other assistance lines if their minds change.
However, if, after talking to them, you think your father is truly in extremis, go ahead and call the local emergency services on his behalf. At least it’ll get someone out to talk to him.
And I’m speaking from the perspective of a physician who has worked with a lot of unwilling, dangerously ill patients, and who has on occasion gone to court to force treatment.
If anyone wanted an update my father is back in the hospital and doing ok, my mom expressed surprise he was dehydrated :smack: and told me that you see he is fine once he is back in the hospital(which I never doubted). Thats the kind of strange shit my parents keep doing, apparenly not listening to me say something and then act shocked when someone else tells them it. They will forget in a month or two as well.
Oh and he was not terminal, he just went in to get a bladder stone taken out. I would not instantly freak out if he was terminal and wanted to go, but thats not what this was.
This reminds me a bit of when my mother-in-law was very sick, about 2.5 years ago. She was not telling the rest of the family how bad she felt (they live 1000 miles away from the nearest of us), and was not letting my father-in-law tell anyone (not that she was entirely admitting even to HIM how bad she was). And she was refusing even the help he tried to offer - like snarling at him to get that thing out of here (referring to a walker he borrowed to try to help her get around).
Long story short, SIL flew down there, managed to persuade MIL to go get some bruises (from a fall) checked out, and got her admitted for blood transfusions and rehab services to build her strength. And SIL “ripped her a new one” for being such a stubborn ASS about acknowledging her illness and seeking the help she needed.
It turned out, she had a serious illness which was causing the anemia and weakness. If she hadn’t had the hospital / rehab time, she’d have been too sick to tolerate treatment for the condition.
Anyway - I post that to note that people who are that ill may well otherwise be “in their right minds” - but judgment can get pretty badly impaired and make you do really stupid things (I’ve had this happen with myself). And your spouse - who is used to you making sound judgments - won’t necessarily feel able to fight you on the bad choices.
I’m not sure what the answer is, in general - you mention your father finally went back to the hospital. If he’d refused, I don’t know what you can do from that far away (we’re in the same boat).
If you take the father’s statement as truthful that he will go to the hospital if it gets worse then explain dehydration is a physically induced condition that will make him dog sick if he lets it go.
Also, he doesn’t need to go back to the hospital to get a medical opinion on the matter.
I had dehydration after a particularly bad bout of some kind of intestinal bug a few years ago, and it actually makes you fairly disoriented. They were asking me questions in the emergency room, and I just couldn’t answer them.