Saturday

We met with Mom's doctor, Doctor Smith, to talk about her prognosis. Dr. Smith didn't give her much hope, saying it was likely she had had a stroke, and that her ability to swallow was impaired. Without the ability to swallow properly, a person will take some of the food they swallow into their lungs, which is called 'aspiration'. That causes pneumonia and eventually, death. Dr. Smith thinks mom is in such poor condition that her only hope of survival, for even a limited time, is the insertion of a feeding tube, which we agreed was against her wishes as expressed in the living will. We told Dr. Smith that we wanted to do everything possible short of the feeding tube to get mom's strength back and hopefully regain the level of functioning she had before this incident. We asked the doctor to order a nutrient IV, which she did, and to help us press the nurses to feed her in order to help her gain the strength to heal. We were able to feed her some juice and jello, and she seemed to perk up a little. Yet the nurses seemed just to be waiting for her to die and unconcerned about helping her fight to live. We continued to pray for God's will, whatever it would be, while working to keep her alive as best we could.