Sally Update

This night which happens to be a Jewish high holy day for Passover week it is raining for the first time in ages. I hope it doesn't mean that Sally will pass away tonight cos some people say people close to death usually die when it is raining. This night actually commemorates the Jews' escape from the slavery in Egypt, you know the story of Moses and the Jews, he told the Pharaoh to let the Jews go but he wouldn't do it in spite of the many plagues coming upon the land..... the last of the plagues being the death to the first born child. The Jews and anyone else can escape this fate by taking a lamb and painting its blood on the doorposts then having the rest of the lamb for dinner. When the death angel sees the blood on the doorposts he will pass over that household, hence the name of the holiday Pass-Over - Passover. It was this final plague that finally convinced the Pharaoh to allow the Jews to go free, and it was this very night by the light of the Full Moon that they went out of Egypt.

This morning I was at the hospital. Sally was awake but not terribly aware of her surroundings and did not talk much. She was in a lot of pain so they increased the morphine dose. They are no longer giving her drips so they took the tubes out. In a way she seemed more "normal" without all those tubes, there are only two little tube ends from her tummy, this is where the vials of morphine are injected at different times. She has two of them so that they can give the morphine more often, apparently for some reason you can't inject the morphine too soon after the previous injection through one tubing. Although she seemed more "normal" she is far from it, she hasn't eaten since Saturday morning and indeed she is incapable of eating, she cannot feed herself, and likely to choke if someone tries to feed her.

Also this morning Sally was moved to a private room, that is normal hospital practice for patients who are expected to die. During her previous hospital stays she sometimes sees that one of her ward mates is close to death and so is moved out of a ward into a private room so to die in peace. I guess it is now Sally's turn!! The room does have great views of the river, just a pity Sally won't see it!!

Then the doc came in and gave me the news that Sally is not expected to live beyond three days. The method of treatment for patients expected to die is known as a "pathway" and I guess the document below which I received explains it better.....

By lunchtime I was out at the shops then back into the hospital. By then Sally have had enough morphine to make her more settled, and indeed she was fast asleep by the time I left the hospital to have dinner at home. I expect to be back at the hospital tomorrow afternoon - of course all this assuming that Sally is still on this side of the fence. At any time of the day or night I could receive that phone call from the hospital that Sally have finally passed away - it is rather stressful waiting for such a call, you don't know when it is going to happen, it can happen at any time from now on........