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Eighteen months into my grieving process and trying to understand...

Monday, March 7, 2011

Approaching the End


This is a tough time for me - two years ago Glen was dying and I watched helplessly. The Hospice nurse thought Glen should be admitted to the hospital hospice unit. On March 2, 2009 I wrote:


Glen does not want to go back into the hospital. Brenda and I agree we will take care o him at home.


The Hospice doctor says Glen has been receiving the wrong pain medication. Instead of the morphine based drugs the doctor prescribes a nerve block. Glen starts taking the new medication. I wrote:


No more talk of hospitalization...Brenda and I persuade Glen to get into the hospital bed (set up in the living room)...we take turns sitting up with him.


The nerve block begins taking effect and I reduce the morphine gradually. Glen enters the “in-between world” - sometimes he is with us, other times he talks to those we can not see. On March 9 I wrote:


Talking, simple conversation near Glen about our lives together, childhood memories shared from Brenda, constant messages of love and appreciation for what he has given to us.


This was a time of tears but also a time for letting go and guiding Glen toward the end of his journey in this body and time and space. Death came silently, without any appearance of struggle, simply a kind of surrender as Glen’s body wore out.

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