I have discovered that my 69 year old father has been lying about his health because he doesn't want to worry or burden our family. He's told told two people that he'd rather die than to have the amputation and insists that his alternative medicine practitioners will be able to save the leg.
He's staying with someone who offered him a guest room a couple nights a week so he doesn't have to drive from this clinic to his home every day, about 40 minutes. The clinic performed surgery on him over the weekend but today his blood sugars went so low he went into diabetic shock and an ambulance took him to the hospital.
To make matters worse he's leaned so heavily on his roommate that he'd effectively moved out over the weekend over the row. From what I understand his roommate was screaming at him when he showed up.
I'm not in a financial place to pay for caregiving for him and I doubt seriously that his sister is much better off than myself. I have these people who allowed him to sleep in their guest room asking me what I'm going to do for him. It doesn't sound like he can go home. He can't stay with these people. I live far away from his desired treatment facility.
If he had his own place I could try to stay with him but I can't do that long term without losing my job. If I could bring him back to my home it'd probably destroy my relationship in addition to him going septic or having to have the amputation.
I'm not prepared for this. The people who've let him into their home are suggesting the best thing is that the hospital admits him and provides him the care he needs for a couple days so that he regains some strength and continues on his treatment to recover.
Obviously that'd be wonderful except I know I need to put something into place in the event that's not what happens. Usually I'd have guidance from a medical worker as to what my options are but he's shunned his doctors to the point that they've dismissed him as a patient.
I'm going this pretty much alone, except for his sister but we both live several hours from him. I may be in worse financial situation than she is, I don't know. I'm going to be emailing my bankruptcy lawyer to see if this is a situation the court recognizes and may approve a new budget. I'm turning to this forum for guidance and advice.
I recognize my father is an adult man and is definitely of sound mind, even if I absolutely disagree with how he's managing his health, and therefore I feel like I can't force him to comply with the doctors. Further I don't even know if the doctors may be wrong or if he's let this go so long there's no options at this point.
Thank anyone for their time to suggest what I could do.
A diabetic with a bone infection in a foot is just waiting to die unless the amputation is performed and even then may not survive if septicemia sets in.
It sounds as though your father has now gone into serious heart failure which makes an operation impossible at this point and may kill him anyway.
Giving honey to a diabetic is putting a nail in their coffin.
Make sure his business associates know how seriously ill your father is so they don't ask him to make decisions at this time.
If you have been on your antidepressant medications for a while do not stop them at this point, they will not cloud your judgement as you are used to them. Eat light easy to digest meals and drink plenty of fluids bt go light on the caffeine if you can..
Hard as this may be do not take responsibility for your father's care either by providing a place for him to live or helping financially
He has made decisions that are not in his best interests but never the less he was and is entitled to make. There is nothing you or anyone else can do to change that.
I do think you should let your aunt alert the family so they can visit if they so desire.
Also have your aunt round up oter family members to clear out Dad's apartment. That's something you don't need to be worrying about.
If you think this would be appropriate arrange to have a minister visit your father if he agrees. Most hospitals have a chaplain on staff.
Remember this is not your problem. You did not create it so don't take on responsibilities that other people get paid for doing. Blessings
My father was scheduled, shockingly to me, very quickly for heart surgery. I was also surprised that my father's sister had the money to come from the east coast to be with him for the surgery on such short notice. We visited him frequently but we also went to his house to assess and begin packing. I was really glad to have had direct and present family support for this.
Originally they were concerned that he was entering into the heart transplant level of heart failure, this is hear say from me but it sounded like that was at 25% heart function and he was getting down to 28% heart function. The edema medication they placed him on rouse his heart output to 38% so; they wanted to do triple bypass surgery on him but they determined that he most likely had a heparin allergy, medication I've never really knew about before! This medication allowed for the total chemical reversal of thinning of the blood after they're done with the surgery. Instead they postponed the surgery which, fortunately for me and my aunt, was the next day and not the day before she had to fly back out. Instead of open heart surgery they decided to go with stents, which they said was inappropriate for the level of blockage he had as well as him being a diabetic. The surgery went, as I put it, perfectly. They were able to do it all in one session; six stents, three on each side of his heart and two being fashioned into a single Y. He's feeling a lot better and sadly I had to leave an hour before they moved him into a rehabilitation center but my aunt got to spend another day with him.
This weekend my significant other and I went down to move all his stuff out of the house he was renting with his roommate. This lady was packing all of his things for him, even though my father suspects and has an ongoing police investigation where he's cited her as the suspect in the thief the the family heirlooms. We're there to move all his belongings but this lady has to go over everything about every box and tell me what the box is about all while the weekend is ticking away and the move out date is there. My s/o was losing his patience with her for wasting out time and finally told her that we may not be able to come back again next week to finish up. This set her off and they argued, I believe she legitimately thinks that I'm obligated to destroy my life because this is my father. She and him got into a fight where she kicked him out and then had the audacity to tell me how much "negative energy" he has just because he was speaking the logical truth about the situation. If it wasn't for him talking me down I would have just left back to our home fortunately he said he wasn't here to waste our time, lol... Anyway, we moved pretty much everything except his furniture and a box or two of his supplements and misc items, into his new 10x10 storage.
The plan now is that we will hire movers to move the furniture and whatever boxes are left into another storage unit for a month or two before he and his business partner ultimately move the contents of the storage further south to where his support group is. I'm really hoping I've managed to save him hundreds of dollars by not having to hire people to pack and move all of his things on an hour rate.
And finally the bonus personal share. Every day I've been down there I felt I've needed a stiff drink to unwind at the end of the day. That luxury wasn't provided to me on any of the days on my second visit but this time my s/o and I were able to goto the Ballast Point Brewery for a much needed break and it was spectacular. The following night we went to another place that had the best margaritas I think I ever had.
Thank you all for listening, advising and commenting. This has been really helpful for me ♥!