Persistence with a personal lost cause

[ndynt]

Thank you, ndynt. I didn't fault the hospice nurses -- I think they did the best they could do, I read somewhere that in some cases a thing called "terminal sedation" is used -- I gather it is kind of like a medically induced coma. I wish they would have/could have done that for her. She, herself, was gone long before her body gave up. At the end it was like something out of a bad horror movie, especially her last night.

Butterfly, I never heard that terminology used, but am very familiar with the concept. A combination of meds...to get the patient as comfortable as possible. Sometimes it takes many adjustments. And in very rare cases, nothing works. I am sure her nurses, as I had several times, held back tears and prayed hard that one of the combinations would help.

 

[Butterfly]

I must confess that at the end, I was praying that it would soon be over. We knew she couldn't last out the night, but it was awful. I wonder if she was "suffering" in the sense that she was aware of what was going on or not. She did not seem to be aware of anything, but her body was going through some private hell. I hope her mind and soul were already somewhere else.