bright eyed
Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
- Joined
- Jan 4, 2007
- Messages
- 1,891
FIL's health has been on a slow decline and they just admitted him to the hospital since his wound is not healing.
He's been in a nursing facility since Oct and had been doing poorly, then a bit better, and poorly again.
Rapidly losing weight, they were considering an NG tube to get him to gain some weight but we held off since he would likely pull it out and lose any good will he was establishing with the staff there.
Not much had been said about his wound lately - he went weekly to a wound clinic for care - now he's back in the hospital and the dr. called and said they want to amputate below the knee.
We visited FIL over the holidays and he is very weak - he can't lift himself to scoot up on the bed - he's having trouble keeping food down etc.
The wound apparently is very infected, gangrene and that is why they want to cut.
He's not a good candidate for surgery in general and going under is not an option - so all of this will happen under a spinal...he's 78 years old.
The whole thing has me concerned about him overall. The only good thought is that the surgery will get rid of the infection - but beyond that I'm very concerned about his ability to heal at all, the pain from the surgery (he is already in pain from the infection)...and mentally how he will deal.
but i guess we are out of options only bad and less bad? anything i should be sure to ask?
only thing i've found is that amputation puts you at risk for further amputation - are we just making a terrible situation worse?
He's been in a nursing facility since Oct and had been doing poorly, then a bit better, and poorly again.
Rapidly losing weight, they were considering an NG tube to get him to gain some weight but we held off since he would likely pull it out and lose any good will he was establishing with the staff there.
Not much had been said about his wound lately - he went weekly to a wound clinic for care - now he's back in the hospital and the dr. called and said they want to amputate below the knee.
We visited FIL over the holidays and he is very weak - he can't lift himself to scoot up on the bed - he's having trouble keeping food down etc.
The wound apparently is very infected, gangrene and that is why they want to cut.
He's not a good candidate for surgery in general and going under is not an option - so all of this will happen under a spinal...he's 78 years old.
The whole thing has me concerned about him overall. The only good thought is that the surgery will get rid of the infection - but beyond that I'm very concerned about his ability to heal at all, the pain from the surgery (he is already in pain from the infection)...and mentally how he will deal.
but i guess we are out of options only bad and less bad? anything i should be sure to ask?
only thing i've found is that amputation puts you at risk for further amputation - are we just making a terrible situation worse?