follow-up

continuing on the story from my last post, the meeting between the judge, the conservator, and the doctors occured today. not surprisingly, the outcome was not in the best interest of the patient, in my opinion. he decided that the "best" thing to do was to let the patient's daughter make the decision about changing the goal of care to comfort measures.

this is the same daughter who was been estranged from her mother for more than 10 years. in addition, the mother repeatedly stated, after admission, that she wanted her daugheter to be given no information about her condition, and have no role in any decisions. she lives in california and now we must start the process of trying to contact her, inform her of the situation, etc--this will take days, at best.

meanwhile, the patient is deteriorating: her liver failure is accelerating and now she has begun to bleed--from here nose, mouth, eyes, and IV sites. i doubt she will survive much longer, but i truly cannot see why she should be made to suffer. i cannot understand how a rational and pragmatic person, such as this judge should be, can make a decision like this, which is essentially consigning this woman to die a slow, prolnged death.