Sigh.

[ramonajim]

Ups and downs.

Ma has, in 96 hours, gone from flying away from Darling Wife and Chickee at warp speed in her wheel chair while they tried to get her into an optometrist cuz oh oh oh oh oh oh oh shiny shirts oh oh oh oh oh oh oh pretty! to.......

Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh I'm falling! Help me I'm falling!!!!! while she is standing perfectly still, both arms around my neck, after I've lifted her from her wheel chair and have her standing next to the toilet because it's 4:40 in the ayem and she has to go NOW but forgot about the doorbell we mounted next to her bed so she managed to wheel herself to the kitchen and cry which woke me up just enough to recognize that something was amiss.

Doc Oh today says this may not have been small cell lung cancer after all. May have been ....... not sure what. Something with a very long Latin name that somehow translates into "she's pretty much ****ed anyway."

Can't help but go back to Chickee's assessment from a few months back: Cancer is an *******.

Doc Oh today resurrected talk of hospice. It is coming. We all know it, we all understand it, we all accept it. Except that we don't accept it. Ma is home, in all it's insanity. In home hospice? If it works. We'll see. In the meantime, there is Yet Another Chemo Drug to try. One that we will administer at home. One with FDA black box warnings that lead us to believe that we ought to be donning full force Level 11 biohazard suits to even consider opening the outer wrapper, let alone handling the actual silly little capsule the Nasty Drug is safely (?) ensconced in.

Right answer? Who the **** knows. I sure as hell don't. All I know how to do is to deal with the immediate crisis; to get Ma to the head no matter what time it is, to help Ma wipe, to get her back to bed, to get her salmon and bagels and coconut ice cream and fried oysters and whatever else she decides she wants right now.

Cancer is an *******. Pretty much sums it up.

[amosfella]

google apricot seeds

[suginami]

I feel for ya, brother. You're a good son.

[kerry]

Damn.

[okyoureabeast]

Please consider hospice. In home hospice care is the best way to let someone dieing of cancer finish his or her life.

Best luck to you all however. You're doing the best you can.

[chilcutt]

Have you thought about using adult diapers...It might help.

[ramonajim]

Originally Posted by okyoureabeast

Please consider hospice. In home hospice care is the best way to let someone dieing of cancer finish his or her life.

Best luck to you all however. You're doing the best you can.

Hospice is a given. Just a question of when.

Ma has rallied after "this is it, prep the undertaker" more times than we can count.

Is this it? That's the question. Darling Wife has done an AMAZING job of bringing all manner of resources to Ma. Home Health nurses, Home Aide nurses, PT techs, hospital beds, you name it. This from a young lady who is making it up as she goes. I am in awe of her ability to figure out what is needed and how to get it done.

Is it time for hospice? Who knows. Downside to engaging those resources is that Doc Oh can no longer be there once we flip that switch. BIG deal that - Doc Oh is priceless, as a human being and as a doctor. So we fret. And debate. And ponder.

[BobK]

My mom had in-home hospice for last few weeks of her life after her big stroke. She was no longer eating, barely drinking. They were a big help. Mom was staying at my sister's house. She is a pediatric oncology nurse, so she was up to speed in all end-of-life issues. From what you have said, your mom may not be there yet. Sounds like she still has some fight in her. Sometimes more than one hospice group works an area. Check on that and be sure to get the right one. We had to do that in Louisville.
You are doing the right things. Your wife sounds fantastic. Be sure to get her out to dinner or whatever as often as you can. Good for the both of you.
One of the hardest things was just figuring out that we needed to let mom have her way and let her go.

[SwampYankee]

Originally Posted by ramonajim

Cancer is an *******. Pretty much sums it up.

Yup.

In-home hospice was the plan for my uncle, until he decided he was going to sneak out of the house repeatedly in the middle of the night. So it was off to the V.A.'s hospice unit. Definitely not like the comforts of home but they did do a great job of keeping him safe, comfortable and as happy as they could. The toughest thing for me to deal with was the effects it had on his mental health and cognitive process. Even though he just recently passed, he'd been "gone" for several weeks.

Continued thoughts and prayers, Jim.

[Zeus]

Sorry to hear about this.

[Dee8go]

Talking about hospice with my mother was really hard. It's a watershed event, because you're admitting that, "Yes, I really am going to die soon." Ironically, people actually live longer and have a much better quality of life once they go into hospice. My mother had hospice care for about 2-3 months, I believe.
Once, she got over the emotional hurdle of just having them come over to talk about it, she was fine and really liked the people who came to see her. She stayed at home all the way to the end and my sister and I were sitting with her when she died.
Cancer sucks and is a crappy way to have to die, but using hospice care makes it about as good as it can be.
I wish you well. Watching someone you love waste away is not an easy thing to do.

[stimpy451]

My big sister has been in hospice now for the past two weeks with the big terminal C. It's almost as draining as taking care of her. I hope you can find a hospice similar to the one we have here: Brian's House. It's simply wonderful, under the circumstances.

http://www.mclarenathome.org/body.cfm?id=133