After 14 days they could not wake him up. he failed the weaning trials. the doc said he was no longer breathing on his own and suggested we do comfort care. His heart was taking b eating and he had to be on pressures with all this. I had so many docs in the icu team come to me, over and over that i got fed up and said ok. and they removed the tube and he died. Now i am in deep regret. i wish i cd have just let things run its course in stead of intervene. I know it was bc i was being pressured and i just lost my courage to say no. we were married 34 yrs and im lost. we have no kids and he was my 24 yr senior. im broken and dont want to live without him. i have tried pills therapy and nothing works. the guilt of not standing up for him is eating me alive. We had been going to hosp for 30 years w so many things and each time we made it out alive fine. I took care of him at home im a CNA and did some towards my LPN so im not totally out there but the pressure was too much for me 17 days total no shower no meal constant info being thrown to me daily by the icu team. I should have waited and asked for a consult but i truly was in a panic.... what do i do now. i dont think i can go on..
So many people feel guilt when in reality it is grief. They want to blame someone, usually a doctor or hospice or themselves, rather than feel the grief. It is easier to think you "gave up too soon" than to realize he was not going to make it no matter what you did. Someone said he was in his 90s? Being intubated at that age and on dialysis means he was not in great shape at the beginning. You didn't give up, you did the right thing by not keeping his body going and going without hope of a real life again.
You can find other grief counseling that isn't religious in nature. You can also get a therapist who handles complex grief, again, without a religious angle. It doesn't sound like you made a cavalier decision, it sounds like you likely knew it was the right one but you just hated it, and I can't blame you. It is sad and awful and terrible and I'm sorry that you lost your beloved husband. But it doesn't sound like you had the option to keep him going a few more weeks and then he would be ok. It sounds like you had the choice between having him intubated for a while or removing the tubes and neither outcome was going to end with him going home with you healthy and happy. Each choice would likely have resulted in his death.
I should also point out that most doctors fall on the side of keeping the person alive, as it part of their training to do that if at all possible. They also keep making money if he is alive, no matter what type of life, and not making it if he dies, so it's not like they had a financial incentive to say it would be better to remove the tubes. The doctors over 17 days were trying to tell you that this was not going to save him.
It is now your turn to seek a grief support group or find a professional tho helpbyou see beyond the past and make a new life for yourself.
I KNOW it looks like you could’ve done more, but you really could not have. In our case, interventions gave him six more years but what medicine can do remains finite. FILs body has endured two strokes and stroke operations plus three heart operations, the latest of which put him back on the blood thinners contributing to the initial stroke. The interventions bought him six years but at a certain point there’s no more patching things.
Large hospices often offer free grief groups to the community, which I feel could greatly assist you.
That said, even if you hadn’t authorized pulling life support, people don’t live on life support indefinitely. Multiple bodily systems were going into failure already and that deterioration would continue even if life support were maintained.
If you are 65 based on your username, and DH was 24 yrs your senior, he was 89. With a 30 year history of health problems.
My sister in law was 64 when she contracted covid and was urged to go to the hospital, despite not having symptoms. She had comorbidities galore.....type 2 diabetes which had caused an amputation, CKD and non alcoholic cirrhosis of the liver. They intubated her immediately. She had a cardiac event during the intubation and when they extubated her some 14 days later, she could not breathe on her own. She was brain dead. We were all devastated at her death. But when we put our emotions (and rage at the hospital) aside, we realized what happened was a blessing. Had she been successfully extubated, she would've died a horrible death from cirrhosis alone. That's the truth.
Please call 988 if you feel suicidal.
My condolences on the loss of your dear husband. You've done nothing wrong here, and postponing the inevitable would not have saved you this loss. Many years ago when I was at my lowest point in life, I walked into a Catholic church and got on my knees. I asked God for help and direction. It came. You don't have to be a "religious" person to be at your worst point in life and ask a power greater than yourself for help, my friend.
Best of luck to you.
I don’t think you did anything wrong at all. You did not give up on him.
If you could ask the younger, healthier him whether to insist on continued intubation and whatever other life preserving systems indefinitely, even though the doctors said he would never regain consciousness, what would he have said? My guess is, few would want their bodies to be preserved indefinitely in this state. Few if any would want their beloved spouses to go on suffering either over a death that could not be prevented.
I wish you peace and self -forgiveness as I am sure he would also wish for you.
As others have mentioned you did everything you could and prevented further suffering. Your poor husband was very ill.
Peace and blessings to you as you mourn the passing of your dear husband.
Like your husband, fil was a frequent and successful hospital user. When things have worked successfully every time before, the natural inclination is to assume that will continue.
You were married 34 years with a 24 year seniority gap. Your dh naturally would have wanted you to move forward once he was gone. There is no other choice.
Frankly, I’d research hospices as to their bereavement services. You’d be surprised how much they offer
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