Making sense of it 06 March 10 I think that another factor in Luke's personality change when he was ill was that his head was poisoned with chemo, and then with morphine. He was always a bit fragile in terms of mental health, because of his anxiety disorder and depression. So much so that he was advised not to smoke weed for the nausea. From the time he started the morphine, in February, five months before he died, I felt I'd lost him. He couldn't engage with me any more - the closeness we'd had disappeared, and I grieved it terribly. The morphine took away his ability to see me as a person who had her own needs. I suppose he began to behave like an addict. He became paranoid, telling the children he was terrified that I was going to dump him in an institution. He didn't behave like Luke at all, but like a dark version of himself that I had glimpsed as his shadow, but never really seen. He had hallucinations that made him see things that weren't there, and without medication to calm him down, he wandered around at night in a horrible dream world, flooding the bathroom, talking to invisible people, wandering into the garden. It was ugly to watch - the morphine was essential for pain relief, but the side effects were so destructive. Nobody should have to suffer like he did. When medical science works, its wonderful. When all it does is prolong and increase suffering, it's diabolical. If he hadn't had the surgeries, the illeostomy, the liver resection, the radiation and chemo that nearly killed him, and then another four rounds of chemo with a different drug - if he'd done nothing, and just faded away, the suffering from the tumour would have been as severe, but it would have been over sooner. He was a good, kind man, who got pushed to the limits and then beyond what he could bear, physically and psychologically, and that sucks. Poor Luke

Kath on 09 March 10
Your wonderfully expressive blog is reminding me of feelings that I had just shoved away into a mental cupboard and not dealt with after Brian , my husband became a nasty stranger and then died. The locked away feelings bumped and crashed away inside their cupboard before they , mainly, suffocated and died but I wish I'd had your wisdom and allowed them free expression. Thank you brave one !

Gill on 09 March 10
I TOTALLY AND UTTERLY AND COMPLETELY AGREE SHAZ. I saw my Mom go through a terminal illness. If you allowed an animal to suffer the way she did in her last week of life then the RSPCA would have you up on charges. But with people we make them hang on and on and on until the bitter end. You are so right - IT SUCKS.

shaz on 09 March 10
I'm increasingly aware of just how scared of death we are as a society. We think it is immoral not to want to fight to the bitter end, and have made it illegal for people to chose to how and when they might chose to opt out. IMHO that sucks.

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