Since Dad's bladder cancer has recurred after 6 years of being "cancer free", he has been placed in the care of hospice but not for his cancer. His kidneys suddenly shut down and his creatinine was measured at 9! His potassium also was critically high so he was admitted to the hospital for 5 days where they gave him fluids, treated him for the elevated potassium and did not do much more. When he left the hospital, his oncologist contacted one of the local hospice care groups (apparently there are 90 just in our local city!)and Dad is now officially a hospice patient. He is at home and the hospice nurse comes once a week to check on him. We can call if we need something or have questions, but you have to go through an answering service who has to page somebody who has to call you back, supposedly within 15 minutes. Last call I made to them, it took almost 2 hours for the nurse to call back! Of course, I had called the office back long before then and talked to the "triage person".
Right now, my opinion of hospice is that they are nice drug pushers. Not sure what I expected. I suppose my Dad is doing too well for them to get too involved. They say we can have an aide to help him with showering and dressing, but so far, he can do that for himself. Nothing at all has been offered as far as support for family. The social worker came for a visit but mainly talked about how much she disliked Obama. We got absolutely nothing informational out of her visit.
Unfortunately, we are going to have to change Dad's pain meds since apparently hospice can no longer get oxycontin. What is the deal with that? It manages Dad's pain really well and now we have to try to find something else. Why is Medicare dropping oxycontin??
Dad is getting radiation treatments for his tumor recurrence on the ureter. He is getting 15 treatments of which he has now had 4. The day we left the hospital, the oncologist told me Dad probably only had "days or maybe a week" left. It has now been two weeks and he is walking and talking and eating and getting dressed every morning and also going to radiation! He is the bravest, toughest man I have ever known.
I am blessed to still have him in my life but it is hard knowing that he has to wake up each day knowing that his days are numbered. How does anyone even do that?
