I’m truly grateful his daughter has been able to stay with me until Jim passes.
The waiting is killing us. Him literally but the rest of us figuratively.
I don’t want to sound impatient, yet the stress of waiting for the inevitable is taking its toll.
I’ve learned more about narcotics than I ever expected over this past week.
After they increased Jim’s dose to keep him pain free for the third time in as many days, he started to twitch. To the point he looked like he was having full-body hiccups.
The doctor said it was because his kidneys were no longer working enough to process the drugs, so there was a build-up. He switched Jim to morphine.
Not so fun fact – when they switch medications, they have to scale back the dosage to ensure they don’t do more harm than good. Each person is different in the way they react to these drugs.
The downside is that Jim was in almost constant discomfort while they topped up the new meds until they got enough in his system.
I’m not going to lie. Seeing him grimace in pain was hard to watch. Even though the nurses were monitoring him closely and made adjustments as quickly as they could.
He’s on three different types of meds now. Pain, anxiety, and ones to combat restlessness. He’s been lying down in the roughly the same position for almost 3 weeks now. Hell, I get stiff after sitting in the same spot for an hour. I can’t imagine what it’s like for him.
It isn’t all bad. There have been some funny bits, especially when his mood meds start to wear off. Jim has very expressive eyes, and he often would make silly faces at us. Yesterday, the nurses asked him to roll over so they could wash his back and bum and he promptly told them to wash their own ass and leave him alone.
By yesterday afternoo , his breathing was showing signs of apnea. Three big breaths, a few shallower ones then nothing for 10-20 seconds before a huge gulp of air and then back to the big breaths. I could berly take my eyes from the pulse point in his neck, to ensure he was still with us.
We also heard wet snoring sounds commonly referred to as the rattle. A sign he’s moving toward the last stage of life – actively dying.
The rattle is cause by his decreased ability to swallow his saliva efficiently so it collects at the back of his throat. It produces a wet gurgling sound as he breathes.
The nurses gave him something to dry the saliva up a bit to reduce the sound. She said that was more for our benefit than his. He doesn’t know it’s happening. It feels no different to him than regular breathing.
Today when we arrived to spend the day with him, his breathing was louder, shallower and more consistent. I don’t think he’s paused or missed a breath since we came in a few hours ago.
It’s a waiting game. We’re treating each day as if it will be his last. Itsbeyond stressful. By the time we get home and eat supper, we’re drained. I freely admit to grabbing fast food on the way home, mindlessly binge watching TV and leaving dishes in the sink. We joke that we’re saving them so we’ll have something to do after Jim is gone.
Then, we’ll probably wobble between manic cleaning, quietly sobbing and staring into the abyss. Neither his daughter or I are the emotionally dramatic type, so it will be well balanced as we care for each other as we grieve (and finally get my house clear of clutter)