I am taking care of my father at home. He has advanced COPD and congestive heart failure. We started hospice this week. He is bedridden and has very little appetite. He is also taking a med to relax him and help him breathe but it makes him sleepy. The hospice nurse said to offer him food but not worry if he doesn't eat. My husband insists that I am starving him and says he won't get better unless he eats. He also doesn't agree with the med. I am doing what my dad asks and what the hospice nurse recommends. My husband is causing stress and making me feel guilty. My dad won't get better and he is dying. My husband won't accept this. We have been fighting since hospice started. Does anyone else share this issue? Any suggestions?
So... your husband may need a loving but firm chat with the hospice nurses. It's so sad and frustrating when someone just cannot accept what is coming.
Do not let him try to feed Dad, even liquids (choking hazard). Ultimately it is best if you insist on following Dad's wishes. Approaching it as "we may not like it, but it's what he wants" might help. Doing anything contrary to Dad's wishes would be hurting him, and I'm sure your husband wouldn't want that.
I know how hard this time is for you and I’m sorry you are having to focus on your husbands feelings but he is not where you are. His level of understanding or acceptance may take awhile. It could be a form of denial. My hope is that you can honor one another’s feelings and comfort one another through this difficult time.
Assuming he has none, tell him to piss off and listen to the nurse. Actively dying people usually refuse food and drink.
Tell your husband the nurse knows what she's doing. Have him read the literature I'm sure the hospice provided (or will provide soon). It will talk about the stages of dying.
Most of all, tell him calmly that his job is to be supportive, and if he can't do that, then he needs to find something else to occupy himself during this time.
Food isn’t beneficial at this point. It’s counterproductive to force him to eat.
My brother didn’t eat at the end of hospice. The nurse told us not to expect him to eat.
It might help if your husband spoke to the hospice staff.
You may want to be present and ask them to say it is a ‘family’ meeting so your husband doesn’t feel singled out.
It really helped our family to speak to the hospice social worker and clergy.
They were wonderful in answering any concerns that we had about his transitioning.
The nurses kept him comfortable and were there to address any of our medical concerns.
Hospice will be with you throughout the entire process, even after his death.
Wishing you peace during this heartbreaking time in your lives.
He is wrong. Tell him so, and have the Hospice nurse and social worker tell him why.
Okay, sorry, I will start again, this time with the charitable approach.
Your husband clearly has some concern that your father is being quietly, gently but deliberately bumped off. He, your husband, has perhaps been reading nasty stories about hospice doping people so that they die quicker.
Somebody he respects needs to explain to your husband what is involved in end-stage COPD and end-stage congestive heart failure. Why is your husband so convinced that your father is able to recover? How long has your dad been living with you?
Don’t fight with your husband and don’t listen to him.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNJxq4J5kYY
As to guilt? I think not. You are hardly a felon who takes joy in the pain of others, or in the last hours and days of someone you love. You are a person who is grieving. That is the appropriate G word.