Do you need Oxygen while on Hospice 

That’s kind of what happened to my parents but in the reverse. My dad passed away first and then my mom went on a steep decline with her dementia. She had a stroke and went into a 6 day coma. Well it wasn’t a coma, but she was just laying there not eating or drinking. I thought losing my dad was going to be the hardest and we were like soul tied - extremely close. But when I lost my mom just recently, it all hit me really hard. The two people I loved with all my heart and they loved me the same… are gone. I was blessed to have such wonderful parents and to be so close, but that also comes with deep sorrow once they’re gone 😔

Sorry for your loss. My mom same senario as yours. 3 1/2 days unconscious. Passed on 4/04/24.

So sorry for your loss. 🙏🏻

​@@Ragdollz I'm so sorry for your loss. The grief goes as deep as the love. One thing that helps me through it is knowing that I'll see them again and that they aren't just in my past. They're also in my future.❤

My mother had end stage CHF in December of this past year and came home on hospice, this page was such a blessing to me during that time as her main caregiver. Thinking of you during this time ❤❤

I’m so sorry that your mom has so many problems. 😢❤

My dad had end stages COPD. The morphine always helped, as did the oxygen. He also had a tracheal resection so breathing will even worse because of that. Morphine gave my dad comfort that he wouldn’t have had otherwise. As for the dnr. I don’t know how old your mom is, but is she’s elderly 70s, a dnr is the best decision to make in my opinion. Performing cpr on someone that old will always lead to broken ribs and a horrible ending for them, even if their heart was restarted. I have countless nurses and doctors that I spoke to on it. One nurse used to be an ambulatory tech and she said if she ever received a 911 call to resesitate and perform cpr on either of my parents, she wouldn’t want to do it. Of course she would, but she felt it was inhumane. After watching many videos on it, my parents and I both agree - they had dnr signed. If it’s their time & Gods calling them home, then that’s what it is. Both have since passed.

You & everyone in the house & possibly the neighbors could go boom if someone's smoking or lighting fires near the oxygen (depending how close other people & neighbors are, like an apartment, also a BBQ grill with an open window...) Apart from that, the oxygen + morphine combo worked well with my dad, but he had an issue with the restlessness with the morphine that he was reluctant to take it the last couple of weeks & it was an effort to convince him to do it. Once he went too long without it, he scrambled out of bed & yanked out his catheter on the way to the bathroom. After that, he was sent to a nursing home for 24/7 monitoring because of his tendency to want to get up & wander between morphine doses. He didn't care for the haldol at all, but complained of the morphine making him restless. YMMV.

The waste product of oxygen is carbon dioxide, if they're a CO2 retainer they retain that and it can make them feel worse or cause a lot of added issues, so it can depending on thr patient and how much oxygen make things worse. But generally speaking if you're giving only like 1-2L or makes them feel better then by all means absolutely should use oxygen

@@MeanOldLady Maybe I should have added to my post, AND don't leave your dying patients and or loved ones who are on oxygen unattended with cigarettes. That should not need to be added. But, the statistics show plenty of evidence of people who are on oxygen and still smoke which leads to catastrophic consequences.

That is freakin' awful of the first nurse. I'm terribly sorry you had to go through that.

That's so disturbing since your mother had lung disease and a history of wanting oxygen. Why set her up to possibly panic without it?

Those numbers seem normal

What do you mean by had COPD? Did you have a lung transplant? Also, morphine is a narcotic which makes it a respiratory depressant.

Like the person below asked, if you had COPD does it mean you had a lung transplant? COPD has no cure.

I was going to say the same. Copd doesnt go away...

It is brutal on the family to watch your loved one with air hunger. My brother had it, was so awful, he had oxygen + that bladder bag thing to attach to it the RNs tell you to squeeze. What horrified us, were the veins bulging in his neck. Plus, I read somewhere (maybe Medscape re: neuro muscular blocking agent) that the patient is aware & suffering, even though non-verbal, & getting 2mg morphine. We were trying to move him to home hospice, but he died of lung cancer w mets to everywhere & heart failure in the hospital. Even though I agree 100% w everything Julie teaches us, I hope a good soul would send her pics of what I saw, & discuss those bulging veins. I was already prepared for the bluish-gray skin. My brother had cachexia (74#, 5'8"), & maybe that made them protrude even more. My deceased mom & hubs step-mother didn't hv air hunger, so our family was totally unprepared.

I'm a nurse and have had patients that have had sats of 100

@@user-tl3uf2fd5k Ok thank you, I wasn't sure but thought I'd heard some time in the past that 100% was unachievable. That's why I posted It as a question. Thanks again.

If it makes him feel better more power to him.....for me hospice means comfort.........

That is correct. Having her on supplemental humidified O2…like 2L…is a comfort measure.

@ahk1213 thank you. I have worried about this for over 3 years.

My mom just passed on 3/22/24 💔 I had misinformed nurses, and even an aide, who stepped way out of their lanes and tried to tell my brother that my mother, “would have already died without the oxygen.” He’d already accused me of “trying to prolong things” 🙄 and I really didn’t need them to put that in his head. I asked each of them straight out if they’d ever seen 2L of O2 cure death? I was so pissed! For clarity, at this point, my mother “was too stable” to remain on the hospice service in the hospital and the head hospice nurse wanted us to take her home…aka, she took too long to die after withdrawing the vent and they may not get paid…so Mom was transferred to the geriatric service until she passed. Also for clarity, NO ONE had ever seen a case like my mother’s, so it was strongly advised to keep her in the hospital to manage her end of life care. Even the doctor had never seen someone live that long under these circumstances. She survived for almost 23 days off the vent, but had suffered a severe, unrecoverable anoxic brain injury, which is why we dcd the vent. So her case was too complicated to manage her comfort care at home. Really none of the nursing staff knew what they were talking about. The doctor worked with the hospice team, along with continuing to oversee her care for the few days she survived beyond what the hospice team considered “reasonable.” She had to confirm to my brother (and educate the staff) that the supplemental O2 was 100% ONLY for her comfort and wasn’t “keeping her alive.” You absolutely did not prolong your mother’s suffering. ❤

Have you ever had a sleep study? Use a CPAP? CPAP is ideal to maintain adequate o2 sats overnight if you have sleep apnea, otherwise without your oxygen levels will just keep dropping and anaesthetic can sometimes make it worse that first night. Adding supplemental O2 especially if you didn't have a CPAP can help maintain proper o2 sats but ideally you'd have a CPAP with the right settings for you.

@@calicat1996 Yes, I had the study. I tried to get fitted with a CPAP, but I could NOT tolerate it. It literally made me panic. I tried at least three times.

@lorrilewis2178 there have masks that are just nose pieces now and not mask over mouth and nose. It ends up being your health vs the comfort of wearing a mask unfortunantly unless there's other things you can do to treat your sleep apnea (I.e. surgery, weight loss, mouth piece, etc) but varies on a lot of different factors

@@calicat1996 It wasn't the mask itself that made me panic (though it was uncomfortable). It was the forceful air coming in as I was trying to exhale that caused the panic.

@@lorrilewis2178 I wonder if you could start off at the lowest setting and slowly work up once you get more used to it. I can only imagine it would be difficult to adjust to