Please God...

This past week has been hard. Mum continues to wake up in increasing pain, and although the fentanyl lozenges initially seemed to provide hope of a more rapid relief, after a few days, they were not as effective as we'd hoped. 

So this week, we had our usual visit from the home nurse, but because of some of the complications of dealing with Mum's pain and some other symptoms, we had a second visit, from the nursing supervisor, the next day. She rang the doctor from Greenwich whilst she was with us, and made arrangements for a prescription for a stronger dose of fentanyl to be faxed through to our local pharmacy.

I rang the pharmacy to give them a heads up that the prescription was on its way, but because it was late on a Friday afternoon, it was too late for the special order to make it for next day delivery, so we had to wait until this afternoon for the new meds to arrive. This meant that for Sat and Sunday mornings, Mum had the lower dose fentanyl lozenge, and I was told to also give her a usual dose of Endone, so that if the fentanyl didn't have a satisfactory effect, at least the Endone would kick in...  eventually.

So we did this for Saturday and Sunday mornings. I gave Mum the Endone pills first, then the fentanyl lozenge, and sat beside her on the side of the bed, rubbing her back, as she sucked on the lozenge and waited for the pain relief to start to kick in.

This morning (Monday), it was a bit different, as we had run out of the fentanyl lozenges, so all I was able to give Mum this morning was the Endone pills. As much as she was excited by this (as she doesn't really enjoy the process of sucking the lozenge), it meant that she was in agony for almost two hours, until the Endone kicked in. 

As I sat, rubbing her back, and then helping her in the bathroom, she whimpered that it was too cruel, that she just wanted to die, and be out of this misery. I cried. I also prayed. I prayed like a desperate woman.

Throughout Mum's illness, I have never prayed for God to take away the cancer; to miraculously heal her, but only for her not to suffer, and that her death would be peaceful and quick. Today I reminded God of this- that I had never prayed for him to take away the cancer, but now I was praying for him to take away Mum's pain. Please.

To make things just a little more complicated, this morning I had an appointment for a mammogram and ultrasound at 11:30. I was planning not to tell Mum about this, as she has enough of her own stuff to worry about, but given that I had to leave her at a time when her pain medication hadn't fully kicked in, I felt I needed to tell her why, and couldn't really claim to just be going shopping.

This afternoon, I wrote on Facebook:

I know it probably sounds terrible, but I'm actually praying for her to die. She is suffering too much- she has excruciating pain in the mornings that we just can't seem to get on top of; she isn't eating, and is weak as a kitten, having trouble getting up out of her chair, or doing just about anything, and is generally miserable, and we both want it all to end. Needless to say, today hasn't been a good day.

I'm now hoping and praying that tomorrow morning, the double-strength fentanyl lozenge will do the trick for Mum's pain, and bring her relief quickly. I guess I'll just have to wait and see... and keep praying.