Living with Dying: Denial or Reality?

Originally posted on MySpace blog, May 26, 2009

Current mood:confused

It should come as no surprise that the past two days have totally surprised me. Seriously. I know what I just said and it makes no sense and yet it makes perfect sense.

After getting Harriett installed and all comfy in her hospital bed, which has become the focal point of our living room, we 'settled in' and began to wait. For two days I camped in the living room with my book and computer for company and watched Harriett breathe like a new mom watching a newborn.

Then things got weird. At one point Harriett asked me where her sandwich was. Okay, not only odd that she hasn't eaten or drunk anything for three solid days, but she hasn't had anything as firm as a sandwich for MONTHS. I don't believe I could have understood her correctly so I ask her to repeat herself. Yep, she wants her sandwich that she had asked for. I know for a fact she has not requested a sandwich but I want to make her as comfortable and happy as possible so I go along with it and ask her what kind she wanted. Tuna. Dang, Mark & I had just finished off a tuna salad 30 minutes earlier. I find a small can of salmon and make her a salmon salad sandwich and hope she won't notice.

After giving Harriett her sandwich, which she barely seems aware of, a friend stops by. After a visit she prepares to leave and stops by the bed to chat with Harriett on her way out. She asks her if there is anything she can get for her and Harriett told her she was still waiting for her soda and didn't understand why we hadn't brought one yet.

Oh
My
Gawd

I know she didn't ask for one and I began to wonder if she thought she was back in the hospital because that's where she always had soda brought to her. I'm a little dazed by all this but I go fetch the soda, and when I bring it back I notice she actually has eaten half of her tuna sandwich. She seemed to have little control over her hands, but she ATE.

Everything the hospice nurse has told me and all the literature I've read states that in the dying process there is little desire to eat or drink anything and that it's okay. As the body and the organs begin to shut down it uses too much energy to eat or drink and digest food. This is very strange behavior indeed!

This morning Harriett wanted her usual coffee and malto meal. I'm not saying she's eating like a logger, she's still barely eating anything but the fact that she even wants to or is hungry is quite amazing.

Harriett's voice is barely a whisper which makes communication challenging. I hate asking her to repeat herself but it's my only choice. She said something to me today as I was setting up her cereal for her to eat. I asked her, "what?" and she replied:

"I am not dying."

You know what? I believe her.

Living with Dying, approaching the end.

Originally published on MySpace blog, May 25, 2009

Current mood:anxious

There is so much I haven't blogged recently, although I have thought about it quite often. I'll think I need to express this or that, get it out of my head and onto a page, but when I have the opportunity I just can't do it. I am still feeling that way, but I know I have missed a lot that I wanted to record, so I am soldiering on with it today.

When Harriett came off the chemo things began to change. As the poisons left her body she began to feel more like her old self. There were still many days of pain or nausea, or vomitting, but the days inbetween I saw some of the old Harriett. She was reading again, or scrapbooking, paging through my catalogs to place orders. Life was happening as if it would go on 'normally' indefinitely.

I think we all tend to set goals that we work towards, or in Harriett's case, live towards, and she just passed two of them. The first was to reach the one year anniversary of her cancer diagnosis. That day was April 28th. The next event was for Krissy to arrive home in Kentucky. We had only one visit with Krissy since last August and she and Harriett have a special bond. Krissy arrived home in Kentucky on May 7th or there about.

Things have been deteriorating, walking with the walker to and from the bedroom has become painfully slow. Getting on and off the toilet became a real challenge. The toilet seat is extremely hard on the butt when there is absolutely no fat between the bones and the skin. Although Harriett's appetite had picked up she was still losing weight and was last weighed at 97 lbs fully dressed, including shoes. She looks like she just barely survived Auschwitz. She has stopped eating and stopped drinking.

Last week the nausea hit full force with some major vomitting and pain. About the same time Harriett could no longer support herself to stand up and be dressed or undressed. Alyssa helped me and we managed the best we could to get her in and out of bed and to and from the living room. By the time the hospice nurse came to visit on Friday we all agreed that it was time for a hospital bed and Harriett has assumed her final residence in the bed here in our living room. She has a catheter so no longer needs to get up and down for bathroom visits.

The nurse said she thought she's not likely to last more than a week.

This is the hardest week I can remember in my life. Wanting peace for Harriett but still wishing she'd never have gotten sick. Harriett is family to us and it's so hard to let go.

I'll write more later...