[Armistead]

Hospice is certainly a good thing. I have seen both parents through the dying process in the last 5 years and my wife with her mother.

I often regret putting my father into hospice care, but who do you blame, doctors, him, family. He did fairly well off and on, suffering from COPD, but mostly complained of severe back pain from surgeries. He was basically way over medicated from numerous doctors searching for help for years. He got to the point he would miss constant doctor appts just saying he was in pain and didn't want to get up to go. He survived a bad bout or pneumonia due to COPD damage and his doctor said he had a year or so left at best. Didn't go on hospice, but back to missing appts and losing pain meds. I bet he was on 30 meds for COPD, pain, depression, sleeping pills and common older age issues, but he was still mentally there. I finally agreed to hospice since he often missed doctor visits and suffered withdrawal when they wouldn't write pain meds. Obvious, once you go to hospice they will continue meds, but further help to get better is over. Slowly he was doped up on Haldo and other meds until he had no clue where he was. I took much time to be there many days a week for a few months. Sometimes even laying off the Haldo so he could be mentally aware and talk. However, without it, he wouldn't sleep, crawled out of bed. Finally move to a hospice dying house and he quickly passed.

In the end, it was his choice not to go into asst. living where he could continue working with doctors, but at best maybe he would've remained mentally normal and lived some extra months. He just wanted to be at home and he was but for 3 days.