Lucy slipped into a coma while the hospice nurse was here. While her battle will be ending soon, her journey will continue through all of us. She is part of each of us.
Your love and support will help with the sadness of her impending loss.
She has requested that we celebrate her life. We will mourn her passing, but we should take comfort in knowing our lives are better because of her friendship and love.
Filed under cancer battle, hospice
Lucy has been in hospice care for a week now. I have had to call their hot line several times. The callbacks are prompt and the person on the other end of the phone line is calming and supportive.
Today has been a quiet day for Lucy and she badly needed the downtime. We have had a number of visitors Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. Tuesday we had the hospice social worker and charge nurse by for almost two hours. After that, Lucy had an aide come out to help her clean up, and then Lucy had an equipment delivery for her new mattress.
Lucy is very nervous about getting out of bed because her blood pressure is low and she gets vertigo. Once the spinning subsides, she is fine. She sat in her wheelchair and enjoyed her sun porch for almost 45 minutes yesterday.
Lucy will have an aide come tomorrow to help her get cleaned up. Her nurse will be by Friday to check on her and she will be seeing a hospice doctor in the next few days. Starting Monday, she will have an aide assigned instead of having different aides. That will help her anxiety a bit.
Lucy is really tired now. She has been waking up about every 90 minutes asking for water. Even though there is a “bubbler” on her oxygen talk, she still gets a dry throat. Lucy doesn’t need oxygen during much of the day so her throat gets a chance to get re-hydrated. The other thing is when Lucy gets really tired now, she can get a little confused. Many of us have experienced brain fog when we have had to pull an all-nighter to two.
Lucy still needs your thoughts and prayers. Her battle is still underway.
Filed under cancer battle, hospice
Lucy had some more visitors today. Our friend Danette, my cousin Julie, and Julie’s husband Dave were also here. We haven’t seen them for a couple of years because of job commitments, and Lucy received a pansy bowl and some oriental lily bulbs for her gardens. Lucy’s cousin Annette and her husband Al were here and dropped off a stunning bouquet. Lucy’s sister Julie came by to see how Lucy was doing. Steve dropped off a small wheeled organizer which Lucy used to put her items in. Suzy came by to give Lucy a leg massage, which was greatly appreciated.
She has been attempting solid food yesterday and today. Steve and Liz brought some beef stew yesterday and Lucy had a little of it. Today she wanted a hamburger and fries from Culver’s and ate a little of them. While she isn’t eating much, it was nice that she seems to have an appetite. She is also using her spirometer today to help keep her lungs clear. At one point she wanted to sit up on the edge of her bed for a few minutes. She is sleeping better and her abdominal pain has been manageable without pain meds.
She does have periods of extreme fatigue. Her throat is still sore despite Popsicles and throat drops. The soreness was because of the oxygen she was on at the hospital. She hardly needs oxygen here at home. Her bouts of hiccups still occur and require Thorazine, which makes her really foggy for a couple of hours.
Lucy’s hospice case manager will be here tomorrow. We’re looking forward to that meeting. I’m hoping we can set a schedule for the week.
Thank you, everyone, for all your love and support!
Filed under cancer battle, family, friends, gardening, hospice
Lucy was nervous about coming home. In the hospital, you can press a button and have someone there to help. At home, she has me. The people in the hospital obviously have had many hundred hours more patient care training care than I have had. However, her hospice care case manager met with us on Friday before she got discharged and covered everything very thoroughly. One of the hospice nurses met us at the house with her medications, gave me some charting forms, and walked me though each of the drugs.
Diane and my parents were with us at the hospital on Friday. Once we had a firm time set up for the equipment delivery, my parents went to our house to let the delivery people in. Lucy’s siblings came over to visit after she got home.
Today was a very busy day for Lucy. A hospice nurse, Ann, came by to check on Lucy. Ann’s father is in hospice battling gastroblastoma so Ann is aware of the hiccup problem Lucy is having. She also had some suggestions for Lucy and had a couple more prescriptions sent via courier to our house.
Lucy is getting a bathing and massage service twice per week. After Lindsay came by today, Lucy wants to increase it to three times per week. It was so nice for Lucy to get pampered for 45 minutes and she was beaming afterwards.
Lucy’s siblings and her dad visited her this afternoon. We had a very nice dinner together. Lucy had some spaghetti and some chocolate cake. We celebrated Steve’s birthday a couple of days early. Diane stopped by earlier in the afternoon for a bit. It was nice to help Diane celebrate her birthday today.
Lucy has not needed oxygen today. She wanted it on a very low setting tonight. She is still having issues with hiccups, so her Thorazine dose got adjusted upwards slightly. That is working. She has not had much abdominal pain today except for the hiccups.
Lucy is still really tired. Her throat is a little sore from being on oxygen in the hospital. She has been using Halls Breezers to help with that. She also has some Popsicles and Jell-O to help soothe her throat.
Thank you so much for caring for us! I hope these blog posts have helped show everyone what an amazing woman I married. She is the true embodiment of a life worth living. Her strength, courage, and dignity are an inspiration. My hope is when it is my time to transcend this existence that I will follow Lucy’s example.
Filed under cancer battle, family, friends, hospice
Her home hospice care is getting set up today. She will be going home at 3:00 this afternoon. Lucy is tolerating her oral medications well. She slept about six hours last night. Her hospice nurse will meet us at home at 3:30.
Thank you for your caring during this difficult time.
Filed under cancer battle, hospice, hospital, Uncategorized