r/cancer • u/skylover1238 • 1d ago
Caregiver Hospital will not admit my mom
Hello. So my mom is in remission for lung and brain cancer. Although she’s been dealing with her pancreatic cancer since fall. She’s been doing good. Except recently things have been really bad.
She doesn’t want to eat or drink. We’ve been getting her to drink ensure drinks and little meals. She fainted on Sunday.. stopped breathing for a bit. We took her to the ER at a Sanford location. They took her labs and everything was normal.. so they said they can’t admit her. Same thing happened yesterday too. Their excuse was “it’s a side effect of chemo.” I know this is not that.
She has lost about 30-40lbs in the last 6 weeks. She now has a hard time walking, going to the bathroom, etc. She is sleeping a lot. She threw up yesterday at the ER. All liquids, no chunks. I’m very scared that this is resembling end stage pancreatic cancer/failure. I don’t want her to die. I’m only 22. I need my mom.
Is there any way to get her admitted? Is there anything I can do for her to help her more than getting her to eat? Please help me.
3
u/dandelion_k RN, somatic tumor mutation research 1d ago
Hospitals are slammed right now with covid and other issues. Its unfortunate as hell, but without evidence of something actively life threatening, she's not going to be admitted through the ER. You can talk to her oncology team for a possible direct admission - but the kicker here is does she WANT the next steps in intervention? if she cant/wont eat, a nasogastric tube and/or PEG tube to give her tube feed and water is the next step. If that's not something she wants, then admission to the hospital isn't particularly useful.
It sounds like you need a frank discussion with her, and a frank discussion with her oncology team - and both need to be done quickly.