218021 1 year ago
1 reply
My dad was last year diagnosed with heart failure has been seeing cardiologist every month since, gradually he started retaining fluids and had odema in legs feet and hands. In january he was also diagnosed with vascular dementia.He was put on what is called virtual ward where we had to check his Sat's daily and send them tothe clinic 2 days later he had a tumble and was admitted to hospital, although seemed fine in himself. They had been regulated doing blood tests to check his kidney functions and always said there had been no change. They picked up he was anaemic and kept him in, everyday was no real update then one day whilst I was at work and barely able to speak on phone I had a call from a Dr at hospital to say they had put my dad on dnar and that his kidney functikn had declined but he wasnt eligibke for dialysis naturally I was confused, again like I say I was alone at work and couldn't stop the flow of people coming in I told the Dr I can't really take this in I would rather you speak to myself my brother and sister all together I said well will come in following day, she wasn't there and none of these things were mentioned again until discharge day where the dnar sheet was handed to me to take home. The hospital set some carers up which are useless, keep missing his medication and literally run in and run out. He was discharged with a catheter which we didn't even know anythjng about and neither did the discharge lounge. Hardly any spare bags and not knowing what to do with it. It was causing him pain.After having a day off work I was told by the care company that I have to contact district nurse so I did to be told they only deal with catheters on people on palliative care. Is this not classed as palliative care? We still have had no real explanation of this dnar and don't even know if they have explained it to my dad all they wrote on the form is that he cannot retain information then on a separate sheet wrote has discussed with daughter. I'm sorry but I don't class a jumbled conversation with myself whilst I'm serving people a discussion on my dad's end of life I'm at a loss as to what to do. We had to call an out of hours Dr out last night in yhe end as my dad was in severe pain turns out he has water infection. I was telling them on the ward he was on for days that he was in discomfort and everytime I went in his catheter bag was full to bursting point and nobody seemed to care any advice I will be grateful for
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