liver failure

[kittykat70]

My 73 year old mother is presently in hospital after collapsing on Tuesday last week.  She was unconscious until Friday and at first Dr's thought she had suffered massive heart attack or massive stroke.  Her prognosis was not good.  She came around but is still not sure what is reality and what is fiction.  They have since ruled out stroke and heart failure as she has liver failure and had a bleed in her stomach.  She is already at stage 4 Kidney failure and has been for a couple of years and her health has deteriorated the past few months to the point we were expecting something big like this to happen.  5 Years ago she had heart surgery as she has irregular heart beat, metal valve fluid on her lungs.  We have been told if she ended up in hospital she would be finished as being active was the only thing keeping the fluid build up down and once in hospital for any period she would slowly deteriorate.

She is sat in a chair for part of the day but she is very week and drowsy.  They are continuing to do tests but they have not said what her long term prognosis will be.  I want to know what to expect.  She has cirrhosis of the liver end stage and she has never drunk alcohol so I know it is not reversible.  But how well can they control this with medication.  Her blood pressure is very low now but they don't want to increase her fluids anymore as her liver is already under strain and so are the rest of her organs.

What questions should I be asking the Dr's and how long could I expect her to live, best and worst time scales.  I don't know whether to look at nursing homes or if it would be hospices or might we be able to get her home.  Just the unknown is killing me at the moment.  I can deal with anything if I have the facts and I feel I do not know enough about any of this to help understand what will happen.

Any advice welcome.

[Myown]

Ps - not saying everyone on the hepc forum has cirrohsis - didn't word that right, but I think you know what I mean.

[Myown]

Sorry to hear all this. I think if you go over to the hepatitus C forum there will be several people there that will be able to help you. Not saying your mom has Hepc, but there are very knowledgeable people there who have cirrohsis themselves and will be able to offer suggestions.

I hope things get better for your mother.
MO