Consider adopting your step kids

Can a mod please fix the title?  It should say "step kids"

In reply to SVreX (Forum Supporter) :

I agree that hospice is wonderful, but often misunderstood. My father was there for his last few weeks and they were amazing. He was somewhat familiar with it, with his father in law going there thirty years earlier, and his own work in the ambulance service. 

But even with what he did know, and after hoping for the end to come sooner rather than later for the last year of his life, when he finally got there he asked my sister, "When are they going to give me the pill?"

Obviously, that's not the way it works, but he clearly wasn't himself anymore either, but it gave me some insight into the misconceptions.

Again...everyone we encountered at hospice was absolutely wonderful. It was expensive, but I felt that it was the right choice for my father and the family.

In reply to SVreX (Forum Supporter) :

I def open on adopting my fiancée son. I'm not his father but I'm his daddy so its only natural to me to take that legal step. 

I'm sorry y'all have to go through the complexities of COVID redtape.

SVreX (Forum Supporter) said:

In reply to mtn (Forum Supporter) :

People see hospice as a death sentence. It's not. 
 

I can't speak for all situations, but when my father passed away this passed year, ALL hospice care was paid for by Medicare. There was no cost to us. 
 

Hospice did their job magnificently. Including caring for ME (and my family). They freed me to do the part that was MY job... to be a good son. 

Very similar experiences with my family. My maternal grandmother was in hospice for the last few days. It should have been weeks. My dad talked to a few nurses while there. 
 

When we drove back, we stopped at my paternal grandparents to pick up the dog. My dad told them what the nurses said - it is under utilized and misunderstood. 
 

10 years later, Grandma got in home hospice care. One year after that, grandpas assisted/independent living choice was largely influenced by the hospice options that were available at each choice. My wife went on to work for the hospice company for a while. I cannot overstate how much easier and less stressful it makes everything, and in a time when everything is difficult and stressful... well, it's a godsend. 

In reply to Woody (Forum Supportum) :

I don't understand how the money works.  My Dad had hospice and it didn't cost us a penny (all paid by Medicare).

Maybe its about hospice facility vs in-home hospice care?  My Dad was in-home.

SVreX (Forum Supporter) said:

John Welsh said:

Wow, Paul.  Its been a rough road lately for you and family in the parental care dept.  Best wishes.  

I do wonder, from a hospital visit and hiipa stand point, other than self incriminating by saying you are not her birth daughter, what check is there or proof that she is not daughter?  My guess is the hospital desk is not checking birth certificates, are they?  

COVID. Hospital only permits 1 family member as contact. That's the nephew. All info is filtered through him (as he sees fit). 

Not entirely true. Most hospitals are going with 1 visitor per day and only that visitor for that day. So other family members can cycle through during the hospital course.

And to reference something said earlier, yes they would like to keep the point of contact via the phone to one person, there can be a code or visit identifier used for updates on personal pt information. As long as you have that information, you can updates.

Personally, take it with a grain of salt, it's time to be an shiny happy person. Clearly the nephew is clueless and doesn't have a true vested interest in the outcome outside of the aunt staying alive against better clearer judgement. You want to know why there aren't beds available in a hospital? It's exactly E36 M3 like this everydamntime. I probably wouldn't be so polite to tell the nephew to gtfootw.

My question is "who" made the mpoa decision? There has to be a plan in place at the hospital for this kind of event. You should have been able to challenge their decision if they rabbit holed down the "blood relative" bs train.

In reply to Ranger50 :

It may not be entirely true at every hospital, but it was entirely true at this one. 
 

My mother in law made the mpoa decision when she was of sound mind. As she should have. 
 

But she made a mistake, and her step daughters are now unable to address it.

This is also a good reminder to tell your MPOA, and anyone else involved, in clear and distinct terms what you want in what situations. I personally think that once you hit age 80*, the default should be "DNR, palliative care only**" and you should change it from there if desired. 

Obviously there is very little that is black and white, but at least have the conversation, and you should probably involve your primary care physician in them. 

*Maybe younger, but the 75 YOs in my family have typically have another 10 good years minimum in them. 

**Palliative care does not mean just dope them up with morphine and let them die. Palliative care for my grandpa, for instance, involved radiation. He had colorectal cancer. This was a cancer that in anyone even 10 years younger, they would have looked at and said "Well, lets just do a quick operation, some chemo, and we'll take care of that", but he wasn't 80, he was 90. To do nothing would have meant he would have died in 2-12 months, and those would have been increasingly painful months. With the radiation, he lived for another ~6 months before dying of "old age" (which is NOT a cause of death).

SVreX (Forum Supporter) said:

Just realized my typo in the thread title. Of course, "kids" should say "step kids". 
 

In reply to SVreX (Forum Supporter) :

Ok then are there successors listed? Because the nephew doesn't have to do dick if he doesn't want to at this time. 
 

Im pretty sure the pompous docs are feeding him a line to get themselves paid.... All the while knowing it's death eating a cracker.... So says this nurse...

In reply to Ranger50 :

I never said the nephew didn't want to do anything. That's the problem. He is a control freak and absolutely wants to do everything. 
 

All info is filtered through him, and he then disseminates what he feels like, or changes the info as he sees fit. ("Oh yeah!  Aunt Mary is doing great!  She should be discharged within a few days!")

I know you are a nurse, and respect your input. But I don't think there is any way for a step child to unseat an appointed mpoa who is still competent. It's a legal loser, because step kids have no rights. 

In reply to SVreX (Forum Supporter) :

All I'll say is that doing "everything", is just as bad as doing nothing.

In reply to Ranger50 :

I agree. 
 

But the one difference is he's not gonna step down voluntarily. 

The unfortunate reality of people who can't put their own feelings aside for long enough to differentiate between prolonging life and prolonging death... I'm so sorry to hear your MIL, SIL, and wife are having to suffer through this all-too-common trauma.

Talking about hospice care- and American's attitude towards death- is a full-on berk it I'm gettin' political trigger for me, even though hospice really isn't. 

American baby boomers think death happens to other people- full stop, no other generation comes close. It's not like it isn't understandable since they literally grew up during some of the fastest medical advancements known to humanity, believing things like cancer were mere generations away from being curable, but at my ICU its on a near day-to-day basis we have some [i'm trying not to curse] person demanding every treatment known to man on an elder when we know the instant we take them off of the 3 goddamn pressors keeping their pressure up they'll pass in moments. I've had so many family "members" rave at me that hospice was "killing someone" I cut them off mid-sentence now; it isn't, death is apart of life, that's their choice. I love people, but I've seen too much long-term suffering to have any tolerance for it anymore.

John Welsh said:

Wow, Paul.  Its been a rough road lately for you and family in the parental care dept.  Best wishes.  

I do wonder, from a hospital visit and hiipa stand point, other than self incriminating by saying you are not her birth daughter, what check is there or proof that she is not daughter?  My guess is the hospital desk is not checking birth certificates, are they?  

None. If you as a person call the facility claiming to be the daughter of the patient, there is no way to know if you are that by birth.

Ha ha, I am not advocating to break the laws, federal government!... but speaking as a hospital worker if you got a nurse that wasn't the typical and claimed to be direct family, you could probably get direct info and bypass the nephew. It's a big security hole all Hospitals have.