I started this blog because I don’t trust myself to talk. If I start crying I may not stop. Actually I don’t have too many people to talk to. For the past 10 years we have been waiting for Vic to die. Initially, I think, people believe, that holding a dying person’s hand in the final hours is “romantic” but then the person doesn’t die…and the world moves along. People carry on with their own lives. That is just the way it is. People battle to handle the emotion, the waiting, the suffering. And it is okay for them to move on.
It is not only other peoples fault’s. I don’t have time to visit, go for coffee, phone… It is a constant juggle between Vic, the boys, work, hospital, pain clinic, family. Many of my old friends must think I deserted them. Maybe I have but time in every which way has deserted me.
I have been moved by old friends and acquaintances sending me messages of support. Thank you all. I had no idea that people would actually read my blog.
Earlier today I read an blog written by Michael Wolff, a writer, where he beautifully articulates this dreadful struggle to die. He writes about witnessing a loved one’s inexorably slow, modern-medicine-propped decline and suffering that endlessly stops short of death. It is so true. I cried. http://www.caring.com/blogs/fyi-daily/the-long-long-too-long-goodbye
Good news! Prof Froehlich phoned yesterday and said that Vic and her situation has haunted her. She will do an experimental “procedure” on Vic next week. Monday to Friday Vic will go to theatre for 5 hours a day for a Ketamine/Lithium/something else infusion. Hopefully it will erase the “pain memory bank” and her body will lose some of its opiate resistance. That will be so merciful!! Vic takes 400mg of morphine, in tablet form, twice a day. She also takes Stilpayne, Panado, Degrenol, Neurontin, Buscopan, cortisone twice a day with 25ml morphine syrup every 4 hours for breakthrough pain. The meds is not what is causing her sleeping.
Vic sleeps 95% of the time. When she is awake it is to whimper or vomit.
Jared has started to display symptoms of severe stress. His school marks are dropping and he doesn’t sleep. Like me, he is awake every couple of hours to check on his Mom. Jon-Daniel doesn’t talk. He just carries on. I worry about him – how will he handle The Day, when it comes?
In the movies the Judge says, when handing down the death sentence: “May God have Mercy on your soul” – I pray that God will have Mercy on our souls. Especially on Vic and the Boys souls…
Vic's Final Journey 