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Nancy Ellen · 09-27-2003, 05:18 PM

My father was walking around and fine until 9/16/03. We were all called over to his house that night because he couldn't stop coughing. We heard the death rattle and were all alarmed so I called Hospice. They told me to give him a half an Ativan and some Robitussin. We continued the same thing the next day. Hospice supposedly had a big meeting about his meds the next day and a whole bunch of meds were stopped that afternoon. Thursday night (the last night I saw him alive) I helped get him into bed and had to hold him around his chest. I couldn't believe the noise I heard coming from his lungs. My ex mother in law is a nurse and she said he could have drowned in his own secretions because he just collapsed in my sons arms on Friday. Why didn't someone do something about the liquid in his lungs?

delrae4753 · 09-27-2003, 07:30 PM

I am so sorry for your loss sometimes what hospice does at that stage is comfort measures only at that point since he had the death rattle there is not too much they would have been able to do if he had a do not resucciate order.

Nancy Ellen · 09-27-2003, 08:26 PM

Yes. He had the orange DNR band around his ankle. I didn't know what it meant until the end of last week. So they were just trying to make us feel like we were making him feel better. That makes me so sad. I tried so hard to make him feel better.

09-29-2003, 11:03 AM

Nancy, I think we need to stop beating ourselves up. I do the same thing. Maybe I should have stayed at the hospital the last night, or maybe if I would have told the nurse I was leaving, they would have told me to stay, or why didn't I offer to rub his feet or put lotion on his face or or or. If I was a better wife. Or sister. My brother kind of gets lost in the grief I have for Danny. A million ways I could have done things different. When I really think about it, I know things happened the way they were supposed to happen. All our tears won't bring them back. I miss them so much.

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