On 3/17/2015 9:30 PM, Califbill wrote:

"Mr. Luddite" wrote:


Tough decision for the kids. It's not my place to advise, but I know what I'd do.

My heart goes out to your wife and sister in law. My brother and I went
through this with our dad in the early 1980's. Bone cancer. We went with
no heroic measures and let nature take it's course. Was hard, but he was
terminal and really poor quality of life.
As an aside, seems as if those Doctors of competency are really lacking.
My mother in law was bipolar, and was under a doctors care most of her
adult life, and never really was fixed in anyway. Other than a lithium
regimen later in life.


I have a bit of a problem with psychiatrists. I think it's a very
inexact science more prone to guess work and personal opinions.

In this case family members became concerned about unusual behavior
including indications of a lack of sense of reality and requested that
she be evaluated. Two different psychiatrists were
involved and both declared the mother to be "fine", the first about 3
weeks ago and the second after she was admitted to the
hospital three days ago. Their mother was also complaining of a severe
headache and my wife and her sister were the ones who requested the
initial CAT scan (which was followed up by the MRI) that showed the golf
ball sized brain tumor.

The psychiatric evaluation is key to determining competency which
becomes a legal issue. By declaring her as being "fine" the
psychiatrists prevent rational decision making in her behalf by others
and is also key to to other services. Fortunately in this case the
medical doctors noticed the hallucinations and overruled the
psychiatrist's determination of her condition and competency to make
rational decisions. Otherwise, the hospital could not keep her there
against her will.