I have been devastated by the final hours of my mums life. She had terminal cancer and I was helping to care for her at home. She eventually lost the ability to swallow so was put on a syringe driver. She then became barely conscious. However was still complaining of pain. Her breathing changed early in the evening and she was moving around with a look of discomfort on her face. We called the community palliative care team and the nurse came out. She said mum looked in pain. They gave her more morphine but it didn’t settle her. For four hours we had to sit and offer comfort and hold her hand as she panted like she was running a marathon. Her heat was racing she was very agitated and sweating badly. We called the palliative nurse back but she said there wasn’t sign off to give her any more morphine we had to watch desperately waiting for an hour to pass for her to be allowed another dose. Then suddenly she stopped breathing, head turned to the side eyes opened and she was gone. I want to know if anyone else has been through a death that wasn’t peaceful. Is it normal? Was she suffering? Should she have been able to have more pain relief? I am tortured by it. All I have experience of reading about are mostly deaths of people slowly slipping away peacefully away as if to sleep, or Cheyenne stokes breathing fast then slow. Not the horrendous ordeal we went through.
