Well, the above falls squarely under the heading of "What I wish I had known then"!![realizing that you can't fully know ahead what you will be dealing with] Here are some things to add to the above if the person you are caring for is failing
1. If patient and caregiver are married and have individual credit cards, stocks, bank accounts, etc. those issues need to be addressed ASAP. It has taken me 3 days to get a simple Power of Attorney recorded at the Courthouse.
2. I did not know until last week [dumb me] that only one Doc can be in charge of narcotic perscriptions- John's primary Doc is in LR-3 hrs. away, Chemo Doc is 1 hr. away and family Doc, who has been out of this loop, is here. So we have to pick one to deal with from here on out.Altho we both have "Living Wills"
I need to deal with talking to John about a "Do not Resuscitate" order in the event his systems start to shut down.I don't want to do this, but---
I need to be sure his son understands the agreements we have reached. I need to know the protocal if John gets to die at home-who do I call ? Altho these are gruesome things to contemplate, we all need to prepare for them.
I know that while I am usually good at spur of the moment crisis solving- if I have to confront this- I won't be very good, and the only way I know how to deal with it is to plan for the eventuality as best I can. My Dad always told me to "Get my ducks in a row" so you can handle the situation. Amy