Quote Originally Posted by quint41 View Post
My mother (86) has a living will with DNR, and I am her med power of attorney. She and my Dad had the whole package done several years ago so everything would be taken care of if they ever got sick.

I agree with Aquila -- why did the doctor come to YOU with this? Did he discuss it directly with Mr. S's father first? I would suggest a quick call to the doctor and ask him to break the ice with Dad. If he's like my mother, things like this are better heard from a doctor. (Older people tend to look at doctors as one step away from Gods, and will listen to what they say -- I know this from experience!)

Don't be upset that Silver brought it up, Mr. S. Not only are we all anonymous, but this is what women do -- we help each other through stuff.
Actually I believe that the living will may have a DNR somehow imbedded in it.....Mr. can you check....

but what the doctor is saying is that they need an "Out of hospital Do Not Resuscitate Declaration" That can be filed with the Assisted Living Staff and close at hand to give to EMT's if they are called. Otherwise CPR/defibulation/intubation will be initiated and continued probably until they reach the hospital.

And I'm sorry, I answered this above about why the doctor communicated this to me and not FIL.

"as to why the issue was discussed with me rather than FIL and MIL. I've been taking them to doctor's appt for 5 years now. I consider it my job to keep up with medical info and care. I've been their advocate in this manner through I'd say 20 to 30 emergencies, illnesses and hospitalizations. I attend all their appointments and have a better idea of their medical history and prescription history than they do. Their doctor knows this and includes me in all their exams. When we were at the doctor on Monday, FIL was asleep almost the entire time. We could wake him up to ask him something, he'd reply, "I dont' know" to all questions and then fall asleep again. The doctor is completely willing to discuss this with FIL but I told him that I had to discuss it with Mr. first. The doctor offerred to meet with all of us to discuss. "


And I'll elaborate....I was in the room with my FIL the entire time that the doctor was there. MIL was having her exam in another room. Just prior to the doctor entering the room, I had asked for a private conference with the doctor to discuss a specific matter concerning my MIL. I went back to the room with FIL (a nurse stayed with him while I was gone to make sure he didn't fall out of his chair) Dr. came in and began to go over issues. FIL was asleep. We could wake him up to answer a question but he'd answer "I don't know" to every thing we asked. The doctor went through the list of problems and I ended up supplying answers for everything. At the end of this, he asked me what code status he had and I said full code. He said that we may want to discuss and reevaluate that. He said that it was unlikely that he would come through CPR/defibulation/intubation well considering all the decline in overall health that we were seeing. FIL was there but asleep.

I told the Doctor that I needed to discuss this issue with my husband before we did anything else. The doctor wrote a note on the orders to schedule a meeting with all of us ASAP.

Then I took them back to their home so they could get lunch and went to the store to get some "supplies" for them. I went back and went into the nurse's office to discuss issues with them. The nurses told me that just after lunch that FIL had fallen asleep again and they couldn't wake him up. His blood pressure was very low. She said that it quite a bit of rousing to get him awake. They report these kinds of things to the doctor and the doctor replied back to tell me to rush the out of hospital DNR discussion.

I hope this answers why the discussion happened the way that it did.