How long can a person live without a feeding tube?
My mom was admitted to the hospital four weeks ago with pneumonia. She was already under Hospice care prior to this for declining health. She is 82 yo with history of Congestive Heart Failure, pulmonary fibrosis, and possibly a “mini stroke”. She did not respond well to her treatment for pneumonia and there has been steady decline – with no hope of recovery. She has a DNR in place. She stopped eating and taking her medications nine days ago. We declined feeding tube and stopped IVs. Her doctor, on day five, after she stopped eating, couldn’t believe she was still with us. Two other doctors since then have said it’s soon. By the way, my mom is very spiritual and said before she became unresponsive that she is ready to die. We started a continuous morphine drip on day 8 for comfort measures. It is so hard to watch her struggle with each breath day after day and had no idea she could last this long. Just how long can we expect this to go on? She has been totally unresponsive to all stimul
