My Grandmother is Dying the Same Way My Mom Did
My mom died 9 years ago from ovarian cancer. After some 6 years fighting it off with chemotherapy, she was eventually advised to join hospice.
Yesterday I learned that my grandmother (my mother’s mom), was placed in hospice. She’s been on chemotherapy for bone marrow cancer. Just like my mom, the doctor’s decided the chemotherapy was causing more harm than good. The pain and impact of the side effects of chemotherapy outweighed its use.
So my grandmother, pain-stricken and belabored in breathing, is going to hospice to help her manage the pain and breathe better.
Last night my aunt told me that the hospice nurse was teaching her how to administer morphine drops to my grandma.
Our mom’s hospice nurse taught us how to do that, too. My sister, dad, and I lived with my mom during the last year of her life. The hospice nurse didn’t teach us that we’d eventually need to hide the morphine bottle from our mother. She’d be in delirious pain and want more morphine — but at levels that would kill her.
Luckily my sister was a nurse, so she kept track of all of that. I think my sister had it the hardest of all of us because of her nursing duties. My mom, in her delirium, saw my sister as a bit of a warden. She’d complain to me that my sister was withholding food and hiding…
