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LorenzoStomp t1_irn4ucz wrote

I did in-home care for a kid with mucopolysaccharidosis III aka Sanfilippo. He was misdiagnosed with PDD-NOS/atypical autism for most of his life, because even though it's a simple pee test to diagnose it's so rare no one thought to do it until he started declining severely in late adolescence. Someone might have caught on sooner if any of his siblings had also had it but somehow he was the only one of 8 kids (with a 1 in 4 chance) to inherit the gene defect from both parents.

His parents were able to keep him at home for most of his life except for 2 years when he had to go to a group home because they weren't able to find another carer for him after I herniated a disc in my back (he could be extremely aggressive and his parents were older/had physical disabilities). When he aged out of children's services at 21 his mom really hustled to get funding and arrange 24/7 care for him at home and his dad built onto their house to make an apartment for him. I was able to come back as support staff for his last year and a half at home. We worked to keep him as active and functional (and entertained) as possible but his CNS slowly degraded and he finally couldn't swallow at all. An abdominal port for a feeding tube wasn't an option (he would've had to have been either heavily sedated or physically restrained at all times to keep him from messing with it) so his parents decided to enter him into hospice where he was kept comatose until he passed of dehydration. It was rough but a lot quicker than what some kids get, spending years bedbound before passing.

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SerifGrey t1_irqkl7o wrote

Kept comatosed until he passed of dehydration.

Is that a peaceful way to go? is it pain free? would he of known? I know he was put into a coma but what’s the general ease of passing here?

Also here’s an interesting bit of info I found, I have cerebral palsy which is brain damage at birth, however you’d think dementia could be an increased risk factor later in life, as my brain and body went through a stressful brain damage event but apparently people with cerebral palsy have no link to dementia, unless they have some form of epilepsy.

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LorenzoStomp t1_irr7z29 wrote

The first couple days he was in the hospital, he was sedated but would sort of wake up every few hours. His mom had to argue with the Dr to keep him completely under, when I talked to the nurses about how he shouldn't be allowed to wake up one told me, "Let him say goodbye" which was ridiculous because he had the mind of a 2 yr old. He couldn't understand what was happening, just that he was uncomfortable and somewhere strange. Once he was home he was kept completely under so he couldn't be aware of anything and was given morphine along with whatever else they used so he wouldn't feel pain. When he passed he just stopped breathing.

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SerifGrey t1_irrda3c wrote

Thank for the context and information, you are a very empathetic person with a big heart, to be able to witness that, when you knew the outcome, yet you still did your duty to that poor young person. Im 30 now but couple years ago I had to watch my grandad die at his home, and yeah his last breath was rather peaceful and he also had morphine, but his was pancreatic cancer. He lived to a good age and I don't feel sad about it so much now, but thats nothing compared to that poor boy who deteriorated at a young age, Im glad he didn't suffer.

I wonder why people don't do that for assisted death, or death penalty, (sorry I read another post earlier) but slipping into a coma and just lots of morphine whilst dehydration sets in

Thank you for replying and I hope you were able to maintain a firm grip on your own mental health during your working hours, and have good coping mechanisms.

It takes a strong individual to do, what you do.

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Less-Market9641 t1_irvqp43 wrote

Some medical professionals are ridiculously out of touch with obvious things. My friend's dad was 83, had congestive heart failure and dementia so severe that only Haldol kept him from just crazily striking out at nurses and family and going full on psychotic. Then some doctor decided to take take him off the Haldol, because it could make his heart problem worse. The dad went apeshit, nurses couldn't control him, and that sure as hell didn't help his heart. But the doctor refused to put him back on the Haldol, because he felt it negatively impacted this demented, dying man's quality of life. Like somehow being a mindless rage machine flinging his own feces was better? Thank goodness that doc got taken off the case, and the poor old dad was able to be medicated back to calmness for the last few weeks. It was as if the doc couldn't recognize that a mind destroyed by dementia cannot be capable of good quality of life.

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LorenzoStomp t1_irw084t wrote

When my client went to the hospital he was running a high fever. The hospital gave him a small amount of aspirin to reduce it but refused to give more because it might hurt his liver, even though we knew by that time he wasn't going to recover. They also argued about giving him ketamine to keep him under even after his mother explained multiple times that he was resistant to milder sedatives and aggressive when upset/confused.

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askingxalice t1_irlve9y wrote

This is too sad to think about.

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MyVoiceIsElevating t1_irm06vi wrote

My thoughts exactly. People that work in healthcare with kids that are terminal or have rare conditions like these are just amazing that they can do what they do.

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Traditional_Ad9764 t1_iro1zop wrote

I do in home health care for a gentlemen that is showing signs of dementia, but he’s almost 90. It is so difficult and heartbreaking, I can’t bear the thought of supporting a child through something like this.

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MyVoiceIsElevating t1_irokrzk wrote

I concur. As someone with a parent with early stage dementia it’s very hard to cope with. It’s easier to accept for someone that has lived a fair amount of their life, but for a child jeez what a terrible thing.

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sweatshopegg t1_irlz9g1 wrote

I learned about it from randomly being recommended for the IG page @haidynshope and it really stuck with me…

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thehazzanator t1_irmbibt wrote

Hey me too. Horrible disease stealing her daughters life from her before her very eyes

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eternally_feral t1_iro7sf5 wrote

God, dementia is such a horrible disease. No one deserves to suffer from it and I couldn’t even imagine being a parent and seeing my kid going through that.

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Hour-Count t1_irq1gh0 wrote

How sad 😢 I watched my paternal grandmother battle this terrible disease. It's even worse that we treat our pets more humanely than we can legally treat our family members. Pets are euthanized to end suffering, yet humans are forced to suffer with diseases, such as this, until their very last breath!

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monchota t1_irnk56c wrote

We can stop these disorders, by having testing done and also fixing it in vitro.

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silverback_79 t1_irmsuon wrote

700 000 out of eight billion?

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Dravos011 t1_irqo703 wrote

Yeah, that we know of, its probably higher

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SexyDoorDasherDude t1_irn8r8l wrote

I dont think torturing infants, through genital mutilation, is something that would help the situation.

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Dravos011 t1_irqo83h wrote

What are you on about?

I've tried looking through your past comments and cant figure out what gentile mutilation you're talking about. My best guess is you're talking about what they do to intersex babies who have uncessicary surgery done on them. If so why bring it up here, it doesnt seem to have anything to do with the topic of this post

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SexyDoorDasherDude t1_irr29r9 wrote

Male genital mutilation? You need to be clued in?

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Dravos011 t1_irr3f3w wrote

Circumcision? Theres a lot of genital mutilations out there done on kids

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