Restless night

1 minute read time.

FormerMember

13 Mar 2016

Second night in the hospice, and this time I am staying over. Got back at about 10am after a rotten night and early morning at home. Pete was ok early on, managed to have some conversation, but later in the day he lapsed into sleep and pretty much stayed there. He managed to watch about 5 minutes of the Ireland-Italy match, but wanted the set off before Wales came on. He couldn't operate the remote control which was always his domain.

I had a very tearful day but the hospice staff were wonderful. This evening for the first time he had some pain, and the first shot of Oramorph. He has been very restless all night, breathing short and shallow, throwing off the bedclothes, asking me why I won't help him to get up, and saying weird, disjointed things. He is very obedient with the nurses but tells me to bugger off. So I have started speaking like they do rather than like me, and that seems to work. I know he doesn't mean it, I'm guessing / hoping that it's just that he knows he can lash out at me.

He has gone a long way from me and Pete as I knew him is probably no longer here. I hope that will make things a bit easier when he leaves for good. I have certainly done a lot of mourning already. So now it is probably just a question of time, and hoping that he will not suffer. One good thing is that I don't think he ever realised he was going to die, he was still talking today about what he was doing towards getting strong enough for the next chemo, so he has never given up that aim.

This is the most difficult thing I have ever done, hope I don't mess it up for him.