A few weeks ago I picked up the phone and called my dad’s doctor.
He didn’t know I was doing it. He would have been furious if he did.
I did it anyway.
What Was Happening
My dad has a heart condition. He’s on Lasix — a diuretic meant to keep fluid from building up. He told me the medication wasn’t working and he hasn’t been urinating as much as he used to. He also mentioned, almost in passing, that he’d stopped sleeping in his bed. He was sleeping in his recliner instead.
I know enough to know what that can mean. When fluid backs up into the lungs, lying flat becomes impossible. The recliner isn’t a comfort choice. It’s the body compensating.
I told him I was worried. I asked him to talk to his doctor about it.
He told me he was fine. That he wasn’t worried about it.
And I felt two things at once: dismissed. And worried.
The Call
He had an appointment coming up. I knew that much.
So I called the office before he went in. I told them about the smoking — two to three packs a day. The fast food, every single meal. The recliner. The Lasix not working. I told them everything I was seeing that he would never think to mention himself.
I also asked them to screen him for depression.
Because here’s the thing I hadn’t said out loud to anyone yet: my mom died in 2020. And since then, I’ve watched my dad quietly stop caring about himself. Not dramatically. Not in a way that would alarm anyone who didn’t know him before. Just — slowly. Steadily. Like a man who lost the person who made him want to take care of himself, and never found his way back to a reason.
I don’t know if he’s clinically depressed. I won’t diagnose my family. But I know what grief that’s gone unaddressed for years can look like. And I know it can look like not sleeping in your bed. Like not caring what you eat. Like telling your daughter you’re fine when you’re not.
So I asked them to look for it.
What HIPAA Actually Means Here
A lot of people don’t know this: HIPAA prevents providers from sharing your information without your consent. But it doesn’t prevent you from sharing information with them.
You can call your loved one’s doctor. You can tell them what you’re seeing. You can ask them to look for something specific. They can’t confirm or deny anything to you — but they can take what you give them and use it.
I’m a licensed clinical social worker. I know this. And I still hesitated before I made that call, because it felt like a line I wasn’t sure I had the right to cross.
But I crossed it. Because the alternative was waiting — and I’d already been waiting, and watching, and worrying alone for a long time.
What Happened After
I hung up and went back to my day.
Anxiously. Half-waiting for my phone to ring. Half-waiting for him to call me, furious, asking me why I went behind his back.
He never called. I assume the office didn’t tell him. And I sat with that — the relief, the residual guilt, the not-knowing whether anything I said would change anything at all.
It might not. That’s the part nobody tells you about anticipatory grief. Sometimes you do everything you can and the outcome doesn’t change. Sometimes love isn’t enough to make someone want to save themselves.
But I knew something his doctor needed to know. And I told them.
I don’t regret it.
If You’re Carrying Something Like This
Anticipatory grief isn’t just about bracing for loss. Sometimes it’s about watching someone you love make choices that are moving them toward it faster — and feeling completely powerless to stop it.
Sometimes it’s about loving someone who lost their reason to fight, and becoming their reason anyway, even when they don’t know that’s what you’re doing.
If you’re in that space right now — watching, worrying, doing what you can from the outside — you don’t have to carry it alone.
This is exactly the kind of grief I work with. The in-between. The not-yet. The love that has nowhere to go.
I offer a free consultation. It’s just a conversation — and it costs you nothing.
Sherri Webster, LCSW, C-SWHC is a licensed clinical social worker specializing in anticipatory grief and life-altering diagnoses. She works with adults in person in Dover, DE and via telehealth across Delaware, New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia, Florida, and South Carolina.
