Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
He saw his cancer doc 4 months ago and had scans, labs, and was cleared to not come back for a year. He sees his PCP every six months.
He is not actively bleeding all the time, he just has episodes where he coughs hard enough to loosen one of the crusty areas in his sinus and it starts bleeding. His cancer doc wants him to irrigate his nose 2x a day, but he won't do it.
His cancer doc is at UAMS and was recommended to us by his cancer doc at MD Anderson.
Call the cancer doc, explain what's going on and ask for a psychiatry referral. Did the oncologist prescribe the antidepressants, or did the PCP?
One of the items is that the man is only 56 years old. I do not know what kind of insurance they have, but unless he's on disability, it is not medicare or likely medicaid.
Which means that a 3 night overnight in a hospital may or may not help the husband's medical issues - but it's not going to do anything toward getting a stay in a rehab (SNF) facility covered (the usual rules for medicare) because he likely doesn't have medicare.
His cognitive disability and likely depression are worrisome - though I agree that medical intervention with depression medicines can only go so far. Possible that behavioral counseling ("talk therapy" - but in his case "writing" therapy) would be helpful for him to express his frustrations/resentments/unhappiness and learn some new tools for coping.
Has there been any contact with society for the Deaf in your area OP? Perhaps your husband and you could begin to learn sign language so that he would have another way of communicating/making his desires known?
Unless he's totally mentally disabled, it seems like his lack of care is mostly lack of self care at this point (i.e. could bathe, refuses to. could use bathroom, refuses to), and while unfortunate is not something that is necessarily something OP can control - which is why its important to give him some mental health options that will perhaps allow him to have hope and cope in a healthy way with the significant illnesses that have befallen him as well as their lingering after effects.
Best of luck OP. I am so sorry your husband has had such an ordeal and that it has so negatively impacted both of you.
Unless the OP's husband has been declared incompetent, she can't force him to do anything. Even if he has been declared incompetent, if he is physically stronger than her - she likely still can't force him. (unless of course the court gets involved and involuntarily detains him as a danger to himself or others, and that's usually pretty extreme)
And no amount of telling her that she can in this forum is likely to change that fact.
If he accepted the washcloth from her and is cleaning himself up a little to go to the doctor, that's progress and actually a sign that he might be persuaded to take better care of himself. Hopefully a good therapist as well as some outreach to the local deaf community may give both the OP and her husband some assistance and hope.
Has there been any contact with society for the Deaf in your area OP? Perhaps your husband and you could begin to learn sign language so that he would have another way of communicating/making his desires known?
Assistive Technology would be so much quicker, easier and better than that.
While it certainly seems like they would admit him, if for some reason they seem hesitant, or they do not appear to giving him a complete body exam in the ER, be sure to remind them to check for bed sores on his back & butt. If he has been sitting in the same position for months, bed sores are a possibility. My husband once got enormous bed sores after only a 4 or 5 day stay in the hospital (where he was just sitting in the bed and not moving around).
Good luck to you.
Were the nurses turning him every 2 hours? He should not have been "just sitting in bed" if they were giving him appropriate care. You're right in suspecting bed sores in this case too.
He's going to the ER and will be getting a psych eval. I will update when I can.
Oh, good.
Sorry for being harsh.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
