Knowing when to let go

By Dennis Thompson
HealthDay Reporter

(HealthDay News) -- Diane Hardison's father, Bobby Morrin, died in July 2007 at the age of 67.

Suffering from extreme dementia and wracked by repeated tiny strokes, Morrin spent his last month of life under hospice care in Nashville , Tenn. , where Hardison lives.

It was the first peace he'd known in years.

He'd been diagnosed with dementia at 60, but he could have been suffering from the condition for years. He drove a tractor-trailer, and his family didn't see much of him.

"We didn't know how bad it was," said Hardison, a 38-year-old nurse. "He didn't come home a lot."

When he wouldn't show up during the holidays to see his grandkids, the family knew something wasn't right. He kept getting lost and missing load deadlines, and eventually got fired.

Morrin's family took him to a neurologist, who found that he was suffering from a severe case of dementia. His brain had experienced some shrinkage, and he'd suffered multiple strokes.

At first, Hardison thought her father could move in with her mother, even though the two were estranged. But Morrin's dementia turned him violent, and he ended up attacking her mother.

After that, he spent four years in a geriatric psychiatric unit at Tennessee Christian Medical Center , now known as the Skyline Medical Center 's Madison Campus.

They were not years of peace. Morrin grew more unpredictable and violent as the dementia ate away at him.

"I could remember, you would have to run out the door to get out, because he was getting very violent," Hardison said. "He'd start saying, 'I'm going to get the hell out of here, I'm going to run my truck over people.' He used to think he was in his truck when he was in his room. He would get angry and ask why people were in his truck."

By June of this year, Morrin had deteriorated terribly. He was drooling and slow to respond, Hardison said, and could hardly walk.

"I wanted to bring him home," Hardison said. "We knew a stroke was going to come. We knew that was going to be the end, that a massive stroke would happen."

But a doctor approached the family about the idea of palliative care, and they decided to place Morrin in hospice, first in a hospice unit at the hospital and later at a separate facility.

"It was much more relaxed at the hospice, much more reasonable," Hardison recalled. "They saw what you as a family had already decided and already been through, and they supported you. They said it's OK, this is what happens at the end of time."

Hardison's kids came with her to the hospice -- something that didn't happen often at the hospital -- while she kept watch over her father in his last weeks.

"It was clean, it was homey, the beds didn't look like hospital beds," she said. The family filled the room with memorabilia from her father's life, albums and pictures and teddy bears.

Morrin succumbed to pneumonia at 4 a.m. one morning, surrounded by his family. Hardison checked his pulse and then called for help.

"It was very peaceful," she said. "They had prepared us for it. We knew it was coming. Sure we were crying, but it wasn't horrible bawling. We knew what to expect."

Hardison said that, as a nurse, she understands the desire to keep treating, to try and beat a disease.

But now she also knows the value of knowing when to let go.

"We overdo it sometimes, when you can't look ahead and clearly ask, 'What are you doing it for? Is this what that person would have wanted for their life?' " Hardison said. "If you love the person, you have to ask that question and be honest in your answer."

Copyright © 2007 ScoutNews LLC. All rights reserved.