I’ll try to keep this brief. My DF came home 5 weeks ago after a 7 week stay in hospital after a third massive stroke. He knew he needed a carer and was ok to have a carer to share his home. This has worked well for these weeks. Dad has a list of conditions including heart failure and stage 4 of 5 kidney failure. This stroke has robbed him of most of his speech.
This past week he has been in pain with his feet. They are very swollen and red, they have been like this for a very long time, although he was in bed for most of his hospital stay and his feet returned to normal size, on discharge he has not kept his feet up and we are back in the same situation.
During the last 8 days he has seen 7 medical professionals about his feet. He is also wheezing so loudly you can hear him in the room. He has been prescribed morphine and antibiotics. However he refuses to take any medications at all, unless I treat him like a naughty 5 year old and raise my voice.
At 6 am today, he woke his carer, he was very angry and insisted that a dr be called to treat these feet. Refused morphine repeatedly.
The carer called me at 4pm after a dr from 111 had been to see him. During this consultation, he refused to have the carer in the room, but as expected he repeated the advice of all of the other medical staff to take morphine regularly and antibiotic.
He then refused to have his carer in the same room, because he tells lies apparently. I think this was because the Dr took 6 hours to come, he seems to think people are just sitting waiting to jump up and look after him. I had to go to my DF home, my DSis met me there. He was shouting at me, but nothing was coherent apart from “ I don’t want him here”. We explained he has had perfect care, well fed ( no he’s never fed me), clean,( again the carer hasn’t done this) and the most serious allegation, he hasn’t got any medications. The carer is a good man, but is limited as the treatment. Morphine is given by syringe, DF doesn’t have the dexterity to self dose. Carer tries to help him and is being told to go away, quite aggressively. He has never been physical, it’s not his style, but I have to remember he has extensive brain damage.
I gave him his 5pm dose and his 7 pm dose. He agreed to the carer staying tonight because there is no other carer available. I heard the carer on the phone to his manager, who told him, he either had to stay tonight or he could leave and the family can ring a care home and find him a place. Currently his care is funded by NHS CHC, we passed the first assessment and are now waiting for a specialist team to complete stage 2.
At 9 pm the carer text me to say he had offered the dose and DF took it from him and put it on his table to take later!
We know he is dying, we know he needs palliative care, and they came out to see us last week, but I showed her his feet and we were all distracted by that. She was the instigator for morphine.
I wouldn’t blame the carer if he wanted to leave, but I have no idea what to do next?
I am there most days, I know he is being fed, I can see he is clean and dressed in clean clothes, the home is spotless.
I am now out of my depth. I am disabled myself so I could not care for him myself, but neither can I be there every other hour to administer morphine.
I feel like I’m letting him down, but I don’t know what else to try. The idea of liquid morphine is so they can see the dose he needs and give him patches in the correct dose. We tried patches, and he just takes them off, but won’t let you put them on his back so he can’t reach.
I feel like I am at the end of my tether, please help with any tips you think might work