u/f0zzy17

Had a question regarding using a funeral home that’s far from where I live. I am in Seattle, Washington. We are putting my dad on home hospice this week and I’m looking at logistics now before he passes. When that happens, I’d like to use a funeral home in his hometown of Ellensburg, Washington, about 100 miles east of here. When he passes, do I call them or do I call a funeral home more local to us and they do a transfer/transport of my dad’s body? I know there will be costs associated with transporting his body that far no matter what.

Edit: thank you, everyone for your insight. I did end up calling the funeral home we want to use today. Let them know what’s going on and how home hospice begins soon. They do have working relationships with all the funeral homes local to me. It’s just logistics if those funeral homes are busy or not at the time of my dad’s passing but the funeral home itself has no issues coming out here to pick up. After speaking with the funeral director, it sounds like it will be significantly less than I was anticipating. From local pickup to transfer to mileage and end of life services, I picked a good funeral home to work with. And they have a comfort/therapy dog!

Had my dad's bath aide come out today. She noticed, what I'm gonna call "protrusions" on his back and neck where he had surgeries in 2023. She's been his bath aide almost the entire time we've been with home health since 2023, so she does know my dad and his body well. At this point, after being his caregiver for over 4 years, and with him having stage iv prostate cancer, dementia, urinary blockages (indwelling foley cath for over 3 years), difficulty having BMs on his own, he can't walk or bathe or dress himself...at this point, if it is his cancer showing up again, I'm on record with his oncologist that we can't do this. Not again. What are we prolonging? He's 81 with all of the things I've listed. We've ceased the cancer meds (with oncology's approval) he was on for the last year as his PSAs were trending downward to undetectable. This is draining on my mom and I. They know and so do we: he will either die with or from his ailments. Physical Therapy closed the book on him walking again as he has no control of his motor skills in his lower limbs. So he's bedridden, 24/7.

I know I'll get a call from his case manager and subsequently his primary care doctor. It takes an hour and a half just to get him in his wheelchair and another hour and a half to get him out at this point. If they wanna see him for more than an annual checkup, which his primary care is fully aware of the difficulties of transport for us...they can't stand him up to weigh or measure him, it's really just a vitals check, which we get done every 2 weeks with home health and it ends up being me talking the whole time when we could do this entire thing in a virtual visit.

It's so tough to wear the son, caregiver, advocate, and power of attorney hats all at once. I do love my dad very much. I've expressed to him how his lack of life planning really screwed everything up, and what part of him is left inside knows it. Despite that, he is my father and I told him I'll care for him to the end. But man...3 years ago, following all his surgeries and stints in a skilled nursing facility and re-hospitaliztions, we were on the verge of planning a funeral. Mentally and emotionally, I'm as ready for him to pass as I can be, even though that's still scary. We'll be 1500 days into this next week.