oldfella1962
Senior Member
Okay, my wife is in the ICU and her "medical directives" in her will state that she does not want to be kept alive via medical machinery if she is DIAGNOSED with a terminal condition. But the hospital has not officially diagnosed her condition. In other words they don't know what caused the infection/reaction that cascaded into her dangerous condition.
Different doctors give different opinions, but they all agree that if she survives the ICU, she will have to endure months of rehabilitation of various sorts, and will have to be fed through a tube inserted below her throat which will most likely be permanent. But here is my main concern. One doctor says we should take her off the machinery today or tomorrow but another doctor says that we should wait until Tuesday to even think about taking that step. Bear in mind that this is a military
hospital so they will be shut down for a four-day weekend and nothing will be accomplished outside of "holding down the fort" until Tuesday. All the "after death" legalities and procedures they say I will need to accomplish will be handled by experts & counselors right there in the hospital but they don't work weekends. Funeral homes, banks, lawyers, government offices or whoever else I need to work with do not work weekends. Any pending "lab results" that could indicate something
doctors might be able to treat won't be released until Tuesday. And since she is not feeling any pain (she has been unconscious for about 12 days now) why rush into doing something before we have all the data to make the best decision?
Just for a funeral home to get onto the military base to get her body won't happen on a weekend because that office is 'closed on weekends. Everything will end up being "half stepped" over a long weekend. Yes, I will bring all these concerns to the forefront when I and my son (he lives in the area) meet with the doctor on duty later today.
Different doctors give different opinions, but they all agree that if she survives the ICU, she will have to endure months of rehabilitation of various sorts, and will have to be fed through a tube inserted below her throat which will most likely be permanent. But here is my main concern. One doctor says we should take her off the machinery today or tomorrow but another doctor says that we should wait until Tuesday to even think about taking that step. Bear in mind that this is a military
hospital so they will be shut down for a four-day weekend and nothing will be accomplished outside of "holding down the fort" until Tuesday. All the "after death" legalities and procedures they say I will need to accomplish will be handled by experts & counselors right there in the hospital but they don't work weekends. Funeral homes, banks, lawyers, government offices or whoever else I need to work with do not work weekends. Any pending "lab results" that could indicate something
doctors might be able to treat won't be released until Tuesday. And since she is not feeling any pain (she has been unconscious for about 12 days now) why rush into doing something before we have all the data to make the best decision?
Just for a funeral home to get onto the military base to get her body won't happen on a weekend because that office is 'closed on weekends. Everything will end up being "half stepped" over a long weekend. Yes, I will bring all these concerns to the forefront when I and my son (he lives in the area) meet with the doctor on duty later today.