H
HerCrazierHalf
Guest
This might be kind of long so I’ll post the question up here.
How far should one go in attempting to save someone from their poor management of medical conditions? Do you force them to manage their conditions?
About 2 weeks ago my cousin died at the age of 36. One of the reasons I believe I’m able to almost be at peace with this is because I feel that I made a good effort to help him prevent this outcome over the past 5 or 6 years.
My cousin was diabetic since his teens, but has done a poor job of managing it. Half my family is diabetic, and for the most part an incredibly small number of them have any problems caused by this condition. They live normal lives except that they eat a bit healthier than average people and treat their condition throughout each day. Only a late great aunt had issues, but the available treatments were subpar when she was diagnosed long ago.
Both of us lived with my parents until I saved enough to purchase a house of my own. During that time he had well over 3 dozen hyper and hypoglycemic events that me and my parents helped him through plus others helped him through. For those unfamiliar, each event can lead to nerve damage, organ damage, or even death of not detected and treated promptly. I can say that I had personally saved his life at least a dozen times and assisted my parents many times. I’ve canceled plans with friends before and been late to work enough to almost lose a job due to these events.
No autopsy was done, but based on what happened it seems that he has fluid in his lungs. Whether he inhaled vomit or if something else happened is unclear. My mom found him not breathing properly and attempted to help while paramedics were on their way. He was take to the hospital but unfortunately they couldn’t save him.
His glucose reading was over 400, a level that past events taught us he gets too incoherent respond to much of anything. I believe his glucose got too high and unfortunately something made him vomit (not a rare thing). At those levels he is too incoherent, too uncoordinated to move properly and a messy situation turned deadly.
My problem is that merely 2 weeks before he passed I happened to be visiting and helped him through a hyperglycemic event. During this event we learned that his glucose monitor was malfunctioning (and committed a dangerous mistake before realizing the problem). We told him to ask his doctor for a new meter. I privately offered pay the copay or even buy one at retail cost if needed. That was just over a week before he died and he never got a new meter, a tool that may or may not have prevented that particular episode.
Even though I spent the last few years telling him “we literally stopped you from dieing before but we might not be lucky enough one day” after each event and I wonder if I should have pushed the issue over his meter much harder? Days before I found out these meters were less than $70 but he said he’d take care of it himself.
So, now I have the knowledge that I’ve offered up all I reasonably could, but I lacked the foresight or forcefulness to push the issue that might have saved his life. I know that short of forcefully treating him everyday or treating him like a lier about his own health I did what I could with what I knew. But I wonder how far one should go in saving a family member?
How far should one go in attempting to save someone from their poor management of medical conditions? Do you force them to manage their conditions?
About 2 weeks ago my cousin died at the age of 36. One of the reasons I believe I’m able to almost be at peace with this is because I feel that I made a good effort to help him prevent this outcome over the past 5 or 6 years.
My cousin was diabetic since his teens, but has done a poor job of managing it. Half my family is diabetic, and for the most part an incredibly small number of them have any problems caused by this condition. They live normal lives except that they eat a bit healthier than average people and treat their condition throughout each day. Only a late great aunt had issues, but the available treatments were subpar when she was diagnosed long ago.
Both of us lived with my parents until I saved enough to purchase a house of my own. During that time he had well over 3 dozen hyper and hypoglycemic events that me and my parents helped him through plus others helped him through. For those unfamiliar, each event can lead to nerve damage, organ damage, or even death of not detected and treated promptly. I can say that I had personally saved his life at least a dozen times and assisted my parents many times. I’ve canceled plans with friends before and been late to work enough to almost lose a job due to these events.
No autopsy was done, but based on what happened it seems that he has fluid in his lungs. Whether he inhaled vomit or if something else happened is unclear. My mom found him not breathing properly and attempted to help while paramedics were on their way. He was take to the hospital but unfortunately they couldn’t save him.
His glucose reading was over 400, a level that past events taught us he gets too incoherent respond to much of anything. I believe his glucose got too high and unfortunately something made him vomit (not a rare thing). At those levels he is too incoherent, too uncoordinated to move properly and a messy situation turned deadly.
My problem is that merely 2 weeks before he passed I happened to be visiting and helped him through a hyperglycemic event. During this event we learned that his glucose monitor was malfunctioning (and committed a dangerous mistake before realizing the problem). We told him to ask his doctor for a new meter. I privately offered pay the copay or even buy one at retail cost if needed. That was just over a week before he died and he never got a new meter, a tool that may or may not have prevented that particular episode.
Even though I spent the last few years telling him “we literally stopped you from dieing before but we might not be lucky enough one day” after each event and I wonder if I should have pushed the issue over his meter much harder? Days before I found out these meters were less than $70 but he said he’d take care of it himself.
So, now I have the knowledge that I’ve offered up all I reasonably could, but I lacked the foresight or forcefulness to push the issue that might have saved his life. I know that short of forcefully treating him everyday or treating him like a lier about his own health I did what I could with what I knew. But I wonder how far one should go in saving a family member?