Tag: terminally ill

“I’m going to dance my way to heaven…” 14.6.2012


“I am going to dance my way to heaven because I have already been through Hell” – is the copyrighted saying of a brave lady who is terminally ill.  I cannot find her blog nor a reference in Google that this is the case, but I would like to credit her with this.  It was posted in Vic’s facebook by a family member.  If I created the impression that it is my clever line I apologise!  The credit goes to  Martha Mayhew-Merson – Meriale46@aol.com

This afternoon Vic and I were chatting and then she said: “Mommy, why does God hate me?  Why does He let me suffer like this?  Why doesn’t He allow me to die?”

I could not come up with a reply.  I don’t have an answer to this question that not only haunts Vic but so many other people.  Today Rob Cramp, Tracey, (both very dear friends to Vic) as well as Hermien, the pharmacist, asked me exactly the same question.

“I’m going to dance my way to heaven, because I’ve already been through Hell.. Vicky Bruce you are one of God’s special angels.”  My young niece, Muriel, posted this apt message on Vic’s Facebook Page.  Sometimes I think the Catholics are right about purgatory.  Only this must be the purgatory stage of our existence.  This existence of ours can only be Hell…

I omitted to say in yesterday’s post, that with a few exceptions, euthanasia and assisted suicide are very cowardly actions – the ill person getting their caregiver to do the dirty deed.  It is such a selfish action.  If the sick person can swallow their own tablets they can take their own lives.  This is my opinion.

Life is hard but death is even harder.

Tonight I am feeling mentally and physically exhausted.  Depressed actually.

Tomorrow I will feel better.    Tomorrow my brave child will continue her relentless battle against pain and indignity.

God have mercy…

Vic and the boys in better days – 23.8.2011

Eat, Sleep, Vomit 12.6.2012


Today was a mixed day.  Although Vic seems marginally more ill and weaker than yesterday she was more upbeat.  When the boys got home we all had tea with her and the boys joking brought a smile to her beautiful little face.  For approximately fifteen minutes there was easy banter in her room.  What a change – our conversations tend to revolve around bowel movements and the color of vomit.

Lying on her bed with me I realized how small our world has become.  Vic’s days consist of Eat, Sleep, Vomit or Eat, Sleep, Tablets – one of the two combinations.   It is amazing that she has not developed bedsores yet.

The Concise Oxford Dictionary defines euthanasia as being “gentle and easy death;  bringing about this, especially in a case of incurable and painful disease”.

I have a simple theory.  Most people who are terminally ill and of full mental capacity are able of ending their own lives  at one or other stage of the disease.  The terminally ill are able to take that extra dosage of morphine themselves.  The vast majority of people have an incredible desire to live and will live through pain and suffering and continue to breath!  Euthanasia is not the issue… You really want to die, you will find a way to die

In the event of a patient suffering from a disease or illness that incapacitates them i.e. motor neuron disease where the patient is ventilated or the patient was left severely brain damaged from an accident, life sustaining treatment should not be allowed.   If doctors are allowed to prolong lives should they not be allowed to end life?  I firmly believe that doctors do not know when to give up.  Vic’s Dad, Tienie, had severe brain damage after a car accident and yet the ICU team resuscitated him after the brain damage had been confirmed!  Why??? What is the purpose of breathing when you are not able to walk, love, talk, breathe on your own?

Professor S A Strauss in his book Doctor and Patient Law, 1984 edition published by J L van Schaik on page 387 states that “in principle every person is legally entitled to refuse medical attention, even if it has the effect of expediting his death.  In this sense the individual has a right to die’.  All that is required is that the declarant, at the time of making his refusal known, is compus mentus…

In the case of Vic she is on 400mg of morphine twice per day and takes 25ml of morphine syrup every 4 hours for breakthrough pain.  Vic has become morphine resistant and the dosages are increasing to keep her incredible, debilitating pain at bay. Surely the dosages of pain medication that she is on must become lethal?  I know that it is Vic’s doctor’s primary intention to make her life as comfortable as possible by the administration of pain alleviating medicines.   Yet the mercy shown to her may have the side effect of hastening death…  Please do not misunderstand me – If I knew how to pray I would pray for her suffering to end!

Vic has a living will with a DNR (Do Not Resuscitate) clause.  I will ensure that it is enforced if the “need” ever arises.

Sometimes I am scared Vic will not die – that she will continue to live, no breath,  in this hell that we call life.  The bottom line is however that Vic will NEVER take an extra dose of morphine and NO ONE will ever administer an extra dosage of morphine.  We all fear God’s retribution for murder… both the terminally ill and their caregivers.

As my dear friend Mohammed says:- her life is in the hands of her God.  We can speculate as much as we like, we have absolutely NO control over life.

I hate seeing Vic suffer but I so cherish the 15 minutes we had today.  Fifteen good minutes in two months…I know I would have taken that extra dose of morphine a long time ago if I was her her shoes.

The world is filled with evil, bad people.  Why don’t they suffer the pain and indignity that my sweet, loving child suffers?  LIFE IS NOT DARN FAIR!!!!!!!!Image

28 days medication….

Adhesion’s are like ivy…8.6.2012


Today is really a bad day!  Vic is not well at all!  She is experiencing severe intestinal pain.  I think it is the adhesions that maybe causing the pain.

I have visions of the adhesions strangling her intestines.  Adhesions are like ivy – fast growing and aggressive.  Her surgeon says that the adhesions have formed a solid concrete wall and the tissue is like soggy tissue.  I look at diagrams and photos of adhesions, partial and complete obstructions and I find it difficult to come to terms with the fact that the surgery that saved her yesterday is killing her today.

We have reached a stage in Vic’s journey where she is almost 100% bedbound.  She needs help with every facet of her life.

Vic is very aware that her declining health is leading her towards death.  She says she is not scared of dying but I know that she has many other fears and emotions.  She fears for her boys and us – how we will cope with the inevitable.  She worries about the emotional and financial stress of her situation.  She grieves the fact that she will not see her sons graduate or marry.

People say “well, at least you can say goodbye…I never got to say goodbye to my loved one…”  Today I want to say to those people “Be Grateful”!  Do you think it is easy to stand next to the bed of your child seeing her suffer?  Fighting back tears of frustration because you are so darn helpless!  Watching as every day she loses more of her dignity?  Seeing the tears of pain run down her pale cheeks?  Think again! Prolonged goodbyes are absolute hell.

Just about the worse part of the situation is the helplessness that I see in the boys’ eyes when they look at their Mom.  I see their red-rimmed eyes.  I hear them cry in the privacy of their rooms.  I can only hold them.  I cannot say everything will be okay or that things will be better tomorrow.  Because I know it won’t be!

May God have mercy of your soul… 30.5.2012


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…

That will be so sore… 6.5.2012


Tonight I gave my beautiful Vicky permission to die.

Vic’s pain is increasing.  I believe the sepsis in her spine has spread. The back pain is devastating.  Also the abdominal sepsis is so much worse.  In January the wound “popped” once a month and little bits of pus came out.  Five months later the pus pours out – every day…

Vic is spending more and more time in bed.  The first words she utters when I wake her in the mornings ( or any time of the day or night) is “Mommy I am not feeling well…”

Tonight she asked me what would kill her…I guessed that it would be an obstruction.  She said “that will be so sore”Image