Worried and cunfused

[clairedelacey]

Hello everyone, I hope you can help me as I am extremely worried about my Dad. He has been in a care home since March and is 83, he had a bad week last week and became very confused and his swallowing became worse to the point where he was even struggling with water.
He was taken into hospital last night with what the care home thought was a urine infection so I went with him and left at midnight at which point everything seemed ok. I received a call from the doctor on the ward this morning to say they had done a chest x-ray and his chest was a mess and he had pneumonia, I got the feeling that the doctor was warning me that this could possibly be the end so I went to the hospital and Dad looked very frail and had an oxygen mask on but still chatted to me. I spoke with the doctor again and he said that things could possibly get worse and we discussed resuscitation etc.
I'm now thinking that I'm going to get a call at anytime to say the worst but am I overreacting? Will he recover from this or am I going to loose him?
Has anyone gone through anything similar?
Thank You C xx

 

[marionq]

Pneumonia is difficult to cure currently because antibiotics no longer kill bugs so easily. My neighbour who is a big strong 53 year old almost died recently of it and is now out of hospital but very weak.

The doctor will know that if they can't find the right antibiotic then your Dads chances will be slim.

 

[fizzie]

Hopefully the hospital will warn you if this is likely and from what you have said, the doctor has discussed resus so that everyone is clear about the path forward.

Pneumonia is a strange one - it used to be called the old people's friend because it is a often a peaceful way to die and people just slip away - on the other hand some will pull out all the stops and recover with the right antibiotics. My mum died with pneumonia a year ago, she didn't recover after a hospital admission and died very quickly but I know others with opposite outcomes.

My only advice at this stage would be to keep in touch with the ward and to spend as much time as you can with him and see how things go.

I will be thinking of you, please keep posting and let us know how it is going.

 

[canary]

You can never tell
Mum had pneumonia at the beginning of the year and the doctor went through all that with me too. It didnt help that mum kept pulling out the drip. The doctor said at one point that if the antibiotics didnt work then they would just make her comfortable - so I was expecting the worst.
However, the antibiotics kicked in and she is now back at her care home.

Visit her as much as you can and just wait and see.