Linda

Such sad news. I can only guess at the hospice's for denial of her Levothyroxine is that they follow the outdated yet prevalent lab values which indicate to doctors from the 20th century that a TSH level of 4.5 is just fine. So from their point of view, this is just an unnecessary supplement. One course of action would be to ask the doctor who understood that is not right to go from 1.4 to 4.5 and prescribed Carol the Levothyroxine to write a letter to the hospice explaining that it is "medically necessary". If they don't reconsider, you could just keep refilling the prescription and bring it with you to give to Carol. Hospice isn't a prison and while they may insist you can't take any medications, enforcement is another issue. You can put them in a tic tac box if needed so everyone is happy. But its very important to discuss this issue first with the doctor who prescribed Carol's TSH medications as there may be valid reasons to discontinue the Levothyroxine which aren't apparent to me.
I did a quick search and found that Oxycontin is pretty standard for terminal cancer patients. Here's a link to an abstract of one study which concluded
[quote]We conclude that the use of high dose OxyContin for terminal cancer pain management is safe, efficient, and unrelated to shorter survival times. The results suggest that health care professionals may use higher OxyContin doses, when indicated, to enable better pain relief and quality end-of-life care.[/quote]
NCI oxycontin terminal patients
So the nurse may just be trying to help based on their experiences in dealing with terminal patients' pain. You can always advocate with the doctor to get her pain meds changed back if they do switch to oxycontin and it doesn't work for Carol.
again, sorry for this development
Charm