Reply #9: "If I were a dog, they'd put me out of my misery"

[Tansy_Gold]

My husand's words, six weeks before his death.

We were awaiting the birth of our daughter's first child and for her sake as well as my husband's, I wanted him to last long enough for that. But it became obvious that the pain was too great, the cancer had advanced too far for effective treatment, and it was just a matter of days or hours. We brought him home to hospice care on Thursday, the baby was born on Friday, and my husband died on Saturday morning, on our son's birthday.

Hospice had given me various suffering-relieving medications, for whatever good they would do. One of them was morphine, to be administered orally with precise records kept of when and how much was given.

The hospice nurse was on her way for the daily visit when he died, and after her arrival the first thing she asked me to do was dispose of the remaining morphine. I asked her if she needed to check the records and how much was left and she just said quietly, peacefully, "No. We never do that."

I will never forget the tone of her voice.



Tansy Gold