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[quote=Anonymous]I’m the kid who went out of town and didn’t come back when older relatives were dying, because I don’t drive and am not handy, and it always seemed as if there was a huge crowd of people in the hospital rooms.

Now my father is dying in a nice assisted living facility, with lovely hospice services, and I’m the only relative who’s in town and around much. My dad can sometimes wake up and communicate a little by, say, moving a leg. I try to give him choices via him moving whatever he can move. (“Kick now if you want water on your lips. Kick now if you want TV news. Kick now for morphine….”) I’m putting water on my dad’s lips every few minutes.

But mostly I’m sitting around working or playing with my phone.

Anyhow, has anyone here ever actually been in a near coma? If so, what would you have wanted the nearby relative to be doing or not doing?

Does anyone else have tips for what I should or shouldn’t be doing?

Also, do you have ideas about timing? I can probably work remote from the assisted living facility room for along time, but it seems weird to camp out in an assisted living facility room. My dad wouldn’t have expected my to give up my life for this sort of thing, but I’d feel bad if I heard he woke up for a bit and had no one to talk to. So, how do other people reconcile the desire to be there with the reality that it’s weird to be camped out in your parent’s ALF room?

One challenge is that people want to be sensitive and non-judgmental, so it’s hard for me to get ideas about what the unspoken guidelines really are. [/quote]

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