Just wanted to tell everyone what all happened.  Sunday, they went to the ER because she was struggling. This had been a recurrent thing over the past few weeks. This time, thry gave her some IV morphine which helped with her breathing and she went home. Her palliative care doctor had also prescribed morphine and Ativan to help, but I don't think the morphine dose was quite right. Something we thought there would be time to get adjusted correctly.

Tuesday morning at 8:20, Danny called and said he had called the rescue squad because Mom was really struggling to breathe. (She was apparently so distraught that they weren't getting there fast enough. They had had a difficult night where she was up and down most of the night. About 6am, he gave her some Ativan and morphine, but it didn't really help.) I got going and got to Fremont a bit before 9am. She had been given iv morphine and her breathing seemed easier and she was basically sleeping. I went over to her and told her I was there, she touched my face and said, "Hi baby".  We waited around while blood was taken. They did a chest xray to check the fluid in her lungs. They also drained her left lung to see if that would help her breathing. My 2 Aunties showed up around 11, and Ryan came just a little after they did. But Mom was still sleeping. Doctor came and said he wanted to admit her because of the recent frequency trips to try to get some things under control for her and to give her some rest. But wanted to check her right lung to rule out pneumonia or infection, so they took her for a CT scan. When she came back to the room, her heart was racing and she was rather agitated. Very hot and needed something now to cool her down. The nurses gave her some Ativan to help her bring her heart rate down. And just before we went up to the room, they gave her some morphine. That again, put her to sleep. 

We got up to the room and the nurses had to do all the things they do. The hard thing was she was not answering any of the questions they were needing to ask.  So that was concerning. But we thought it was just the morphine.  For really the rest of the day, she was asleep. The hospitalist came by and we talked about her wishes, how hard to fight for her. We said she was not wanting to live this way, so keeping her comfortable was what needed to be done. After that, more family started to come.and visit. We played music for her. And just talked to her. Nurses kept her comfortable. 

Danny, Ryan, and a cousin stayed the whole night. The 3 of us didn't want to leave her. We kept vigil and tried to get as comfortable as we could. About 1:30am, she raised her arms a few times. We wondered what was going on. She started to get a little agitated, and about 2am, she woke up. She was hot and needed her fan. We talked to her. Told her we loved her. She could answer us. Asked us a few things. She would zone out some and then it was like she snapped back, and she would look at us and smile.   She asked for a drink of water a few times. Then asked to get the nurse.  The night nurse came in to check and was surprised she was awake. Said she would get her some morphine to make her comfortable. It took her a little while to get it. Mom kept asking for the nurse. When she finally came back, she told her she was ready to go. She got her morphine and we got a little longer with her until it out her to sleep. She was awake for about an hour. After this, she never woke up again. 

Wednesday morning came. I went to their house to try to nap and just get away for a few minutes. I went back about 9:30am. No change. The new nurse was really on it and made sure to constantly check on Mom. She made positive sure she was kept comfortable. As the day wore on, family came up again. Her breathing eventually changed some. And by about 3, the nurse made sure to give her more morphine to ease her breathing, because she was working pretty hard, and to slow it down. Danny asked when she thought something might happen, and instead of hedging, she told us she thought by the end of her shift she would pass. 

Mom's heart was so strong. It just did not want to stop. As her breathing slowed, we could see her heart still beating strongly.  Finally though, at 6:06pm, her heart did stop, and her suffering was over. 

This was NOT what we expected. We expected for her to be able to go home like before, and set up hospice. We were basically planning on that and on Tuesday talked some about how to care for her. When we set up this journal, we thought we would be making many posts and have weeks. Never did we imagine it would be just a few days.