Cindy,
Thanks for sharing your story in such detail. I too was pretty hard headed and delayed going to an ENT for quite some time. My only outward symptom was my snoring patterns changed when the tumor got large enough to choke me when I was sleeping at night. My wife actually tape recorded me stopping breathing and played it back for me - that's when I realized that I had to get off my ass (and denial) and deal with it. That was quite a few months after I suspected that something was amiss. I had an oral surgeon, dentist, hygenist and a gp (x2) look at it prior and none of them had a clue even though this was one honking big, highly visible tumor (that's why I always recommend going to and ENT and forget about the other 3 I mentioned earlier). I too was stubborn about getting a PEG and as a consequence lost 35% of my body weight. Some (but not all) of my doctors were really unhappy about this situation. In your mother's case almost 50% loss is substantial. In this country we are allowed to go AMA (against medical advice). When my father was alive and dying of cancer his attorney told me that to have him declared incompetent I would have to have 2 separate medical opinions and that was unlikely unless he was unable to communicate! It set me free knowing that I didn't have to be the heavy.

You may want to work with the social worker, staff psychologist and nutritionist to find a different approach to try to convince your mother that a PEG would probably enhance the healing process and get her back to a more normal life quicker and it's not such a big deal.

I too was a bad patient and was angry and in pain a lot of the time. I was tough on my wife and don't even remember half the things I said to her. 2 years later I am still making amends.

From Cindy's and your story describe exactly why most of us here feel that the caregivers lot is tougher than the patient.