Hello all,
Me and my mum are looking after my dad who has advanced oesophageal cancer. He is now bedridden and requires help with most things. He has been suffering badly with pain and also a chronic cough. In the last week he has had a syringe driver fitted and an increase of medication. (From oramorph to medazalam) The level of pain medication he is on was based on how often we were having to call out nurses to administer from his “just in case” meds. He was ok after the switch for a couple of days, but then seems to have now deteriorated quite badly. He can barely keep his eyes open, and is quite confused. Last week he could just about stand up to pee but is now really struggling to do that.
We are not sure if these are signs that he is deteriorating or if these are side effects of the drugs? He really needs the pain relief but it might need scaled back as he is barely with us. How can we tell? We also wonder if the nurse/doctors will give us a heads up when he is on his last days? They haven’t really said what to expect.
Any advice would be much appreciated!
