Pneumonia, the old person's friend

Luckily, my Mother has already made her wishes known if she were to get pneumonia. Do Nothing!

Unless this has already been spelled out in an advanced directive, Doctors might give an antibiotic, just as described here.

Pneumonia, the old person's friend, may be dismissed with a wave of the prescribing pen—but what if the old person wishes the friend to call?

And sadly, this one daughter still does not understand that her Mother dying of pneumonia was a blessing.

From comments to New Old Age

I placed my mother in the gem of Florida nursing homes, after a 6-month waiting list, and was thrilled and felt fortunate. The night she died, I tried desperately to get the staff to call a doctor. I never knew what “clammy” meant before touching her hands, while seeing sweat on her forehead.

The doctor, who took my call, told me, in these words, “I’d have to drive back 30 miles again to get there and I don’t feel like it.”

Then the battle began, with the trained nurses and staff, who had so many protocols to follow that it took them about an hour and a half to finally call an ambulance, while I desperately tried all I could - pay phones were broken, no one had a cell phone (it was around 10 years ago; people had them but not everyone).

The paramedics said I was absolutely right to have called; my mother died that night, of pneumonia never diagnosed in the best nursing home in Florida.

My father died of pneumonia. It was quite difficult for all of us, as he went from being able to remodel a house, to 3 weeks later, dead.

However, we know that if he had lived, he would have been debilitated. He had rheumatoid arthritis. That would have made him miserable, and my Mother miserable, and all of us miserable.

Better to have enjoyed his robust life, than to linger and linger as an invalid.