My Lovely Sister

Thank you, Lainy. I do know exactly what you mean and my heart agrees with you very strongly. Susan is now in a coma and looks very peaceful; the lines of pain and distress have gone from her face.

She looks so beautiful and calm, the thought of her reawakening to this nightmare horrifies me. I can’t bear to lose her, but I’ve told her whatever decision she makes will be the right one. If she wishes to keep fighting, I’m there with her, but if she chooses to let go, I’m there with her, too.

What I find most traumatising is when she’s awake (if you can call it that) and in deep distress. When she’s peacefully asleep, I cope relatively well. I can’t deny it will be a relief (of sorts) for me when she’s no longer in pain.

Thank you all for being here.

I got a call this evening that the Hospice is “concerned” about Sue; she hasn’t woken since she fell asleep yesterday morning, which means she hasn’t had any food or liquid either. They’ve thought she may be slipping into unconsciousness before (i.e. 2 weeks ago) but she rallied the next day, so this may not be as significant as it sounds but she wasn’t in such a weak state then.

They’ve changed her to an air-mattress, because her sacrum is becoming reddened as she isn’t moving (I take it this means to prevent bedsores). Our cousins visited on Friday and yesterday and her friends have been visiting in shifts, with her boyfriend staying in a chair in her room overnight for the past 4 nights. He was going to go home this evening, but since the Hospice called, he’s gone back there for a 5th night. I had never realised how much loved Sue is by so many people.

Thank you, Janet. I’ll look into that, too.

You’re right; I’m exhausted. I can’t bear to see her sobbing and begging to come home, yet I can’t bear not to go in to see her.

XX

Thank you, all. Thank God I found this site so early in Sue’s journey. You have supported me every step of the way.

I talked to the doctors again and they said they took her off oral medication last week because she was sleeping through her prescribed medication times and their experience is that waking a patient and hassling them to take tablets they can’t swallow easily causes more distress than benefit. Quite often they can’t wake her, either, so they thought she was drifting into a final unconscious state. The doctor said that, frankly, Sue’s consultant thought she had less than 24 hours left when he made the decision, so he believed she wouldn’t live long enough for withdrawal symptoms to kick in. But this is Susan and she doesn’t dance to anyone’s tune (or die when any doctor believes she will – she proved this 6 months ago, when they gave her less than a week to live, and she’s proving it again now). They have agreed that failing to alter her “prescribed medication times” to suit HER time schedule and failing to restart the medication when she rallied slightly and started swallowing again was a mistake and they are now doing all they can to rectify the situation quickly. Thanks to advice from you all at CCF, and from AMMF in UK, I’ve discovered Sue’s particular anti-depressants do come in liquid form. The doctor didn’t know that, but she’s said she’ll get some today.

Sue’s major battle at the moment seems to be with her “demons” rather than her cancer, I just hope the cancer backs off long enough to give her the strength to win this battle, before she has to fight the next one. If Sue gets her emotional strength back, we all have a chance of her having a peaceful life and, when she decides to go, a peaceful death.