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So my mom was asked by her hospice doctor to take an X-ray of her breast to see what the progression is with her wound/tumor?


Shes never had a formal diagnosis that she does have cancer, only a chest X-ray from 2.5 yrs ago that the radiologist wrote in his report “suspected breast carcinoma.”


Mom has never received any treatment or biopsy because she said “I don’t want to know.”


So with her being in the NH & on hospice for the last 2 months, the hospice social worker said that if mom is refusing the X-ray & her physical state doesn’t seem to be conducive to having cancer (she’s not lost any weight, no wasting, etc) then they are going to discharge her from hospice.


If her health starts to decline, then she will be put back on it at some point when they think she’s needing it.


Has anyone experienced this before?

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My mom was on hospice twice while in a SNF. The first episode was after a mini stroke & she rallied back to almost pre stroke baseline level of function and we were informed she no longer met the criteria.
Second episode was about one year later when she suffered another stroke along which did in fact cause a huge change in mentation. Hospice took her back and stayed until the end.So yes this can happen.
All you can do is your best; if mom refuses the X-ray work with the hospice coordinators to assess what options there are.
Been on this merry go round once myself, so I can understand what you are going through.
Best of luck...
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Thanks for the extra information.
Has she been in the NH all this time? I only ask because here new admissions are required to have an x-ray to rule out TB. If there are mobile x-ray techs where you are too I think I'd be inclined to try to convince her to get the x-ray just for your own peace of mind, you could promise to keep the results from her if that is what she wants. I've never had a diagnosis since my mom's steep decline and as a result have made many decisions based on the false belief that she couldn't go on much longer, she recently turned 99 and has been basically helpless for years.
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Hangingon61 Sep 2018
I can’t convince my mom to take the X-ray even if they promise not to tell her the results because she says “I don’t want anymore radiation”.. so she won’t take it.
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I am with willie, I don't understand how one Xray would determine hospice was needed. It could just be a ciest. Or a benign tumor. A doctor had to say she was terminal, I would think. Maybe they r finding a mistake was made concerning Hospice being there. Mom needs to get the Xray to compare to the first to see where the tumor is now. Smaller, bigger, gone...

A lot of people have said on this forum that parents seemed to get better on hospice and have been released.
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I'm not understanding why she was accepted into hospice in the first place - it was based solely on one mammogram from over two years ago? Do YOU feel she is dying, from that or any other cause? And since she is already in a nursing home, is there anything the hospice is doing for her that can't be covered adequately by the facility?
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Hangingon61 Sep 2018
My mom had/has a wound above her breast which her doctor looked at 2.5 years ago when she lifted her blouse to listen to her heart..
she asked my mom at that time if she could do a biopsy to see what is was but my mom refused.
my grandmother (mom’s mom) died of breast cancer at 64 yrs old.
My has had only one mammogram in her 50’s but she stopped going after that.
shes 83.
Mom has asthma, degenerative disk disease, bad hips, can’t walk.
shes in wheelchair or bed for most of the time.
she was admitted to rehab last year after falling (3rd time) when she lived at home (alone).
rehab for 3 months.
no improvement, so she was admitted to skilled nursing since May of this year.
the hospice nurse came to see mom when she lived at home last year & told her “you have cancer”.
the chest X-ray was taken in the hospital ER (last time she fell) & the radiologist saw “nodules” on her lungs & a mass near breast”.
so that’s what they went with.
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My mother was put on hospice while in the nursing home and later removed from it, so it does happen. Our situation was different than yours, but you can always restart hospice after it’s stopped of things change and you want or need it again
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