On Friday night, Mom had a rough night. The pain stepped up a notch, after her (assisted) shower. She also threw up after her shower — the exertion, the drugs, or just the advancing of the disease, who knows the cause? There is no certainty in cancer.
Saturday morning, the docs evaluated and increased her daily levels of methadone, to control the increased pain. Mom slept much of the day, but it worked - she wasn’t up all night with her back hurting.
However, more methadone means more disorientation. Today, she’s started having “stalls” — she sits stuck in a position, quivering slightly. She tried to read a one-page letter from Uncle Bill, and she got stalled, glasses on, hands holding the letter up in front of her face, but eyes closed. She wasn’t reading slowly, she’d drifted off and was “stuck”. When I came over and said her name, she popped out of it, like waking up.
She’s sliding away.
I’m glad they’re controlling the pain, even if it means she’ll slide away. She’s slowing down, like the elderly do, and the relief from the (I imagine) crushing pain means that her lucid moments with us are unburdened, free and light. She can laugh with Chris when he jokes that she’s got to drive him home for something: “Well, if you’re not going to drive me, then how am I going to get there?” We were teaching ASL alphabet signs to the nurse today — “O” and “K” — and she was making the hand-signs also, and amused by the nurse’s attempts.
Right now, Mom’s sleeping, breathing steady and fairly strong.
This entry was posted on Sunday, May 25th, 2008 at 11:07 pm and is filed under pers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.