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SomeoneElse

@ SomeoneElse @lemmy.ca

Posts
7
Comments
56
Joined
3 yr. ago

  • Has anyone here gone through the process of getting a third party petition to involuntarily treat a loved one with a mental illness?

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  • This is similar to my situation in that my mum is not dying right now. She keeps saying she wants to die and we have made the doctors aware of that and that we don’t want heroic life saving measures. But there’s a grey area around things like NG tubes and IV electrolytes. Should my mum be allowed to slowly starve herself to death, even though she could go on to lead a full and healthy life for at least 5 years if she just ate? Yes, if she truly understands that’s the choice she’s making. But there’s no way she would choose a slow undignified death in hospital if she was in her right mind. I just know she wouldn’t. If she gets through this though, if she gets home and regains her senses, I will fully accept her decision if she decides to take her life before the cancer finishes her off. I’ll help her procure whatever she needs even.

    With regards to your situation, based on my experiences right now, I don’t think I’d force them to be committed. It doesn’t sound like something that can be functionally cured, like it is in my mums case. It doesn’t sound like a psychotic break, more like long standing psychological issues. And if they can’t be cured, what’s the point in causing yourself and your loved one further distress? Mental health care usually requires ongoing treatment and patient compliance. Can you envision them ever sticking to the medication regime they require?

    Sorry, I know I’m being a bit blunt, I’m just so exhausted from this I don’t have the bandwidth to phrase it more kindly. Only you can make the decision (which sucks) only you will have to deal with the fall out (which sucks more). If they’re not hurting themselves or others I’d follow another commentators advice and write a reassuring but encouraging letter to your loved one, urging them to seek help in order to live a happier life. Beyond that I don’t think there’s a way to get them help against their will without them hating you. And them hating you when you’re only trying to do what’s best for them is truly one of the worst feelings in the world. Best of luck, and I’m sorry for what you’re going through.

  • Has anyone here gone through the process of getting a third party petition to involuntarily treat a loved one with a mental illness?

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  • Thank you, I appreciate it. I’m sorry for dumping that on you, it was a bit cathartic after a horrible day!

    Luckily (?) we’re pretty close to the bread line so there’s nothing to argue about RE her will. We had a weirdly similar situation with an extended family member inserting themselves into the discussions around my mums care with a completely different opinion than everyone else and they caused nothing but more upset and angst. I guess situations like this really can bring out the best and worst in people.

    Thank you for the advice about listening to my conscience. When everything is so uncertain and confusing I guess it’s the only thing I can rely on. And I know in my heart that I’m doing everything that I can to help my mum and that if she were well she’d be grateful not hurtful.

    Thank you again for the kind wishes and advice 💕

  • Has anyone here gone through the process of getting a third party petition to involuntarily treat a loved one with a mental illness?

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  • We kinda assumed my dad would be her proxy as he’s her next of kin (they’ve been married 42 years) but we don’t have the system here. My dad in particular was upset that a third party stranger would make the medical decisions for mum if it came to it, not him. The only thing they did let us decide was whether they’d employ “heroic measures” on the two occasions when she very nearly died. They accepted our request that she not go to intensive care or be resuscitated - that’s something we had spoken about before and we were certain it was mum’s wish.

    I’ve made my dad promise to write his advanced directive when this is over. Speaking as a daughter going through this nightmare right now, I would implore anyone over 50 or with serious health issues to write your advanced directive now or whatever the equivalent is in your country - or just have a conversation with your nearest and dearest about what medical interventions you want to have if you’re too ill to speak for yourself, if nothing else. This would have been an awful awful experience either way, but if she’d written an advanced directive or arranged power of attorney before this happened, at least we wouldn’t have this agonising “are we doing the right thing” question hanging over us too.

    ETA: the Terri Schiavo case from the US is an example of why I think the court of protection/independent third party system is better than the automatic next of kin/proxy system you guys have. Although it’s been awful and initially insulting to experience, I completely understand why “take my word for it” isn’t considered adequate for medical decision making here. Before things deteriorated so suddenly, mum was saying wildly different things to my brother, then me and then my dad. Save your family this heartache - write your intentions out now while you’re well enough to do so.

  • Has anyone here gone through the process of getting a third party petition to involuntarily treat a loved one with a mental illness?

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  • Thank you. It all happened so quickly and things got worse than I ever could have imagined, it doesn’t feel real. (Google Steven Johnson’s Syndrome/TENs if you like nightmare fuel.)

    Medically she’s ready to be discharged to an inpatient physio centre now, but she just won’t eat or drink. I’ve just come back from my daily visit and she told me I was rude and condescending and that she used to love me but doesn’t anymore. She doesn’t have dementia or Alzheimer’s - this is just the effect of a fever on a very frail and weak older person who had very intensive chemo and immunotherapy.

    I was only asking her to drink one sip of the high calorie drink. They’ll put her back on the nasal feeding tube if she doesn’t start eating again and then she will need to stay in the hospital. It’s so frustrating, incredibly upsetting and beyond exhausting. I was so tired today I just burst into tears when she started being nasty. Normally I can hide it, but it was too much today.

  • Has anyone here gone through the process of getting a third party petition to involuntarily treat a loved one with a mental illness?

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  • I’m not sure how useful this will be because I’m in the UK but my mum was admitted to hospital 7 weeks ago with an infection related to her recent chemo/immunotherapy for breast cancer. She only 60, her oncologist was sure he could functionally “cure” her cancer and she was cognitively and emotionally sound, thus she didn’t make an advance directive (a form that expresses what medical interventions you do/don't want in the future) or give my dad power of attorney. There was no need - she was just suffering the usual side effects of chemo, otherwise she was a normal fully functioning person.

    Unfortunately she suffered a swift cognitive decline in hospital and began to refuse basic treatment (like antibiotics for the infection). She began to try leaving the hospital on her own. Once she became too weak to get out of bed she would refuse to be cleaned and changed, refused to eat, refused any tests, even X-rays. It was a really difficult situation because as the doctor put it, people are allowed to make “bad choices” when it comes to life saving health care (think Steve Jobs) but only if they are competent enough to fully understand the consequences of their decisions. My mum was deemed incompetent and because she didn’t make a power of attorney previously, we as her family didn’t have any legal standing.

    In the UK we have the court of protection- the hospital can petition the court and ask for a separate court appointed third party to make the best medical decisions in mum’s interest. They like to use it as sparingly as possible and it’s stopped as soon as the patient is competent again. Before they petition the court though they try everything possible to get the patient to agree to treatment - cajoling, coaxing, bargaining etc. They take the slightest hint of agreement as permission to do whatever it is they need to do. Mum doesn’t really understand what’s going on anymore - or even where she is - but she trusts my dad and I and we’ve built a strong relationship with the doctors at the hospital. So far we haven’t needed to go to court. They give her morphine every two hours and lorazepam twice a day to reduce the pain of the changes etc and make her more compliant. Yesterday we started mirtazapine (an antidepressant) mainly to stimulate her appetite as she pulled out her NG tube again. We know that she wouldn’t want to take this drug if she was competent, but we also know she wouldn’t want to prolong her hospital stay by not eating if she was in her right mind.

    It’s a horrible game of trying not to go against my mums wishes wherever we can, working out of she understands her decision, trying to “trick” her into taking essential drugs/complying with essential care etc. and then trying to explain and justify ourselves during her brief moments of semi-lucidity when she accuses us of wanting her to be ill/be stuck in hospital/to die. It’s absolutely awful for us and mum but I do think the overall guidelines set by the NHS/court of protection are a good way to manage a very difficult situation.

  • Whooping cough’s back — and it’s Covid’s fault

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  • I caught whooping cough as a kid. Nearly killed me. It’s a terrifying disease.

  • Person is diagnosed with bird flu after being in contact with cows in Texas

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  • I didn’t realise bird flu wasn’t transmitted between humans already tbh. I caught Swine flu (H1N1) from another human a decade or so ago.

  • Game of Rules

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  • If only there were somewhere in between…

  • Public Broadcasters of Europe, Let's All Join Mastodon!

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  • Advance free give aways in exchange for “honest” reviews. Still shady af.

  • ‘Everything he is saying isn’t true’: Congolese governments denounce Trump’s baseless stories about emptied prisons

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  • I’m from the UK and our disgusting government is shipping immigrants that arrive on small boats to Rwanda for some fucking reason. None of these people seeking a better place to live are actually from Rwanda. Never mind that our own Supreme Court ruled Rwanda is not a safe country. That’s where we’re ship people off to. It’s absolutely insane.

  • Is TV Dead? Global TV Shipments Hit a Decade Low in 2023

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  • My dumb TV is 15 years old. It’s a bit small for the space and there’s a W burned into it but you can only see it on static screens.

    I would like a new one but it’s pretty low down on the list of things I need to buy with the 37p I manage to save each month.

  • Reddit: Return Of The Junk Stock IPO

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  • Yeah I paid for alien blue pro or whatever it was called. Then they killed the app and gave me a year of Reddit premium (my memory is shit, idk the proper name). After a month or so I switched to Apollo, Reddit’s app was just so shit. I left when Apollo died and now only use dystopia (an app designed for blind users) for the infrequent times I visit Reddit. No adds. It’s almost read only. But it’s ideal for visiting niche subs that aren’t on lemmy without giving Reddit clicks/seeing ads.

  • Teens, with mixed feelings about their own phones, say their parents need to log off

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  • I’m in the UK but I got a letter in the post asking me to join the IPSOS surveys done here. It’s just randomly selected households I think. I get emails every few weeks asking me to complete a questionnaire online. Most of the questions are politics based which I don’t have much interest in, but you get paid in points that you can turn into Amazon vouchers or whatever. It’s a nice bit of pocket money when you’re strapped for cash.

  • Tethered plastic caps

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  • The UK for one. The US too judging the use of $ in other comments.

  • Tensions grow as 160 tonnes of Ukrainian grain sabotaged in Poland

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  • I saw photos of farmers protesting with signs specifically blaming Ukrainians, and saying they’re ungrateful/unwelcome in the country. But I also saw a headline saying that Russian agitators could be behind it. I have no idea which is more likely.

  • Shamima Begum: Woman who joined ISIS as a teen loses challenge against the removal of her UK citizenship

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  • JSYK it’s “mind numbingly” not “mined numbingly”

  • Thailand cracks down on knock-off ‘elephant trousers’ flooding in from China

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  • Linen trousers?

  • 16-year-old killers of transgender teenager in England sentenced for 'sadistic' murder

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  • Why would the pope comment on a murder in England that has no religious motive? Has Justin Welby condemned it? Mirza Masroor Ahmad? Yitzhak Yosef? No, because it’s completely irrelevant. Stop piggybacking on this tragedy with your weird religious agenda.

  • 16-year-old killers of transgender teenager in England sentenced for 'sadistic' murder

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  • Only 6% of adults are practicing Christians in the UK. It’s statistically unlikely this has anything to do with religion.

  • polycoria

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  • Do both pupils work? How does it effect vision?