Hospice care is basically for folks who have illnesses that no longer respond to medical treatment designed to cure them. They provide comfort, support, and medical care (including pain and other maintenance medication) and they also have counseling services to help both the person who is dying and the family deal with the loss. I don't know if you have to promise not to get treatment anymore, but I doubt it. There's a lot of information on hospice care at http://www.hospicefoundation.org/what_is/ and also http://www.hospicefoundation.org/what_is/myths.htm
And giving up chemo doesn't automatically disqualify you from other medical treatments. Choosing not to use one treatment doesn't get you voted off the island, so to speak. But it's also likely that the surgery isn't going to be effective unless it is accompanied by chemotherapy and he has decided to forgo both because they no longer offer him a reasonable chance of recovery.
And it would be incredibly cruel to say something like "Don't you dare go off of chemo they won't be able to do surgery you have no right to let yourself die because we still need you" to your grandfather. He's not choosing to die; he doesn't have any control over that. He wants to die as peacefully and painlessly as possible, and when death is an unfortunate inevitability, that really is what is best for him *and* for his family.
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Date: 2003-01-04 11:37 am (UTC)And giving up chemo doesn't automatically disqualify you from other medical treatments. Choosing not to use one treatment doesn't get you voted off the island, so to speak. But it's also likely that the surgery isn't going to be effective unless it is accompanied by chemotherapy and he has decided to forgo both because they no longer offer him a reasonable chance of recovery.
And it would be incredibly cruel to say something like "Don't you dare go off of chemo they won't be able to do surgery you have no right to let yourself die because we still need you" to your grandfather. He's not choosing to die; he doesn't have any control over that. He wants to die as peacefully and painlessly as possible, and when death is an unfortunate inevitability, that really is what is best for him *and* for his family.