Saturday, August 10, 2013

Palliative Care, Hospice, and MS

"Palliative Care does not leap out as something associated with MS. 

Yet in reality ‘palliative care’ is medical care provided by physicians, nurses and social workers that specializes in the relief of the pain, symptoms, and stress of serious illness ….”

Posted by Patrick Leer—August 8th, 2013

"... Obviously there will come a point when you will need to have conversations one way or another about palliative care, hospice, and dying regardless of what your diagnosis is.

As a caregiver this might be the one surprise you are not prepared for, after all MS is not considered a fatal disease! And your spouse has mild MS or is using disease modifying drugs….  Don’t let yours become intimidated by stigmas or wait too long. Get the facts in your State.

As a caregiver you are no more guaranteed tomorrow than the MS person you care for.”
Thank you http://multiplesclerosis.net/ for the opportunity to share our story of living with MS as a family. 
--
Patrick Leer
Health Activist:
Caregivingly Yours, MS Caregiver @ http://caregivinglyyours.blogspot.com/


9 comments:

  1. You're right, Patrick, end of life planning discussions need to occur, despite how difficult they may be. Our "hard" discussions of late have concentrated on who can help manage Skip's life if I predecease her.

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    1. Top o' the mornin' Cranky ... "predecease" or even just as bad-ass DX like cancer is the ultimate trigger for us all

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  2. I vote with Cranky (as usual). You can't anticipate the circumstances you'll be facing at the end of your life, so the best you can do is talk about your preferences in enough depth that the people making decisions for you really understand what you want. If the likely outcome of various options isn't clear, and it may not be, they may have to guess what you would do. It can be hard. You'll have to trust them.

    I think we've done that part about as well as we can. The part about what I'll do if anything happens to Scarecrow – I know we need to go there, but we haven't managed it yet.

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    1. Zoomdoggies good morning! "TALK" is the foundation of what got our relationships so far anyway ... we all must never stop that talking about XYZ ... Patti' driving force was she never wanted our daughter to be her caregiver - that option was and is off the table.

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  3. If the likely outcome of various options isn't clear, and it may not be, they may have to guess what you would do. It can be hard. You'll have to trust them.rap beats for sale

    ReplyDelete

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