Downhill slide begins
Last night Ginger's temperature ran up to 104.3 around 4 in the morning. She was in pain and was not lucid enough to take her meds. Half the pills I tried to get into her I later found lying in her hair, half dissolved.
I sat up with her lying cool wet washcloths on her head torso and legs for several hours. I didn't want her brains to bake before her body was ready to finally let go.
She was too weak to go to dialysis this afternoon, even if the fever would haven't made dialysis an impossibility. I couldn't make myself take my own pain meds while I lay in bed listening to her suffer The fever making all her joints ache. I arranged her pillows and blanket to make her the least uncomfortable I could and I lay there with her, both of us exhausted and wrung out. I was listening to her breathe. Thinking that this was the end. Thinking that I wasn't even going to be allowed to hold her hand because her fingers were too painful.
When I came to hours later, her breathing was no longer labored (my heart stopped for the few seconds it took for me to see the blanket covering her rise and fall). Her temp was back to normal and the pain had gone with it.
I didn't reschedule a dialysis run for Thursday. If she is still unable go on Friday, the countdown to the final end will have official begun.
The home hospice nurse encouraged me to simply take her to the ER (read: give up and turn the work over to the medical professionals). But the only procedures they can do that I can't Ginger doesn't want done. I am not putting Ginger through another Keystone Cops I.V. installation again.
Around 1:30 this afternoon Ginger was well enough for me to set her in her wheelchair. I got a little orange juice into her and a spoonful of beef stock. An hour later she woke up the rest of the way and had some mac & cheese for which she demanded a spoon in order to feed herself. She even had a few grapes for desert.
We talked about the upcoming deadline to check her into a hospice facility. Medicare allows 30 days to pass between hospital discharge and hospice check-in and still be eligible for room & board benefit. The benefit starts paying 100% R&B for the first 20 days of hospice, then 80% and so on. It is not financially advisable to indulge in a lengthy swan song.
Ginger was at her most lucid when she begged me to allow her to die at home, not in some strange building. Not that can find it in my heart to deny her anything so important even if she hadn't clung to me from her wheelchair and soaked my shoulder with tears while begging me not to send her away.
My heart seems more than capable of breaking long after the point where I just foolishly assumed that numbness would set in.
Another question I want to make the resolution never to ask again: "The worst has already happened. What else can they do to hurt me any more?"
Unfortunately, the universe prefers to show you the answer to ill advised rhetorical questions rather than just telling.
Emily dropped by with some cute blue shoes and tiny little cartons of Hagen Daaz. Between the small talk and the raspberry sorbet, I was able to pull myself together enough to start facing the really awful parts of my day.
Without Emily's visit I would not have had the emotional energy to bring up the subject of hospice facilities with Ginger, let alone the fortitude to face the likely consequences to my mental health in the upcomming days.
Our 10th wedding anniversary will be on September 10. We will not make it that far if Ginger's body has to endure more nights like last night. If the fever trend remains true to established pattern, we will have 2 more good days before it hits again. With luck it may be 3 days and perhaps the next fever will be a mild bout with just a slight elevation in temperature.
I sat up with her lying cool wet washcloths on her head torso and legs for several hours. I didn't want her brains to bake before her body was ready to finally let go.
She was too weak to go to dialysis this afternoon, even if the fever would haven't made dialysis an impossibility. I couldn't make myself take my own pain meds while I lay in bed listening to her suffer The fever making all her joints ache. I arranged her pillows and blanket to make her the least uncomfortable I could and I lay there with her, both of us exhausted and wrung out. I was listening to her breathe. Thinking that this was the end. Thinking that I wasn't even going to be allowed to hold her hand because her fingers were too painful.
When I came to hours later, her breathing was no longer labored (my heart stopped for the few seconds it took for me to see the blanket covering her rise and fall). Her temp was back to normal and the pain had gone with it.
I didn't reschedule a dialysis run for Thursday. If she is still unable go on Friday, the countdown to the final end will have official begun.
The home hospice nurse encouraged me to simply take her to the ER (read: give up and turn the work over to the medical professionals). But the only procedures they can do that I can't Ginger doesn't want done. I am not putting Ginger through another Keystone Cops I.V. installation again.
Around 1:30 this afternoon Ginger was well enough for me to set her in her wheelchair. I got a little orange juice into her and a spoonful of beef stock. An hour later she woke up the rest of the way and had some mac & cheese for which she demanded a spoon in order to feed herself. She even had a few grapes for desert.
We talked about the upcoming deadline to check her into a hospice facility. Medicare allows 30 days to pass between hospital discharge and hospice check-in and still be eligible for room & board benefit. The benefit starts paying 100% R&B for the first 20 days of hospice, then 80% and so on. It is not financially advisable to indulge in a lengthy swan song.
Ginger was at her most lucid when she begged me to allow her to die at home, not in some strange building. Not that can find it in my heart to deny her anything so important even if she hadn't clung to me from her wheelchair and soaked my shoulder with tears while begging me not to send her away.
My heart seems more than capable of breaking long after the point where I just foolishly assumed that numbness would set in.
Another question I want to make the resolution never to ask again: "The worst has already happened. What else can they do to hurt me any more?"
Unfortunately, the universe prefers to show you the answer to ill advised rhetorical questions rather than just telling.
Emily dropped by with some cute blue shoes and tiny little cartons of Hagen Daaz. Between the small talk and the raspberry sorbet, I was able to pull myself together enough to start facing the really awful parts of my day.
Without Emily's visit I would not have had the emotional energy to bring up the subject of hospice facilities with Ginger, let alone the fortitude to face the likely consequences to my mental health in the upcomming days.
Our 10th wedding anniversary will be on September 10. We will not make it that far if Ginger's body has to endure more nights like last night. If the fever trend remains true to established pattern, we will have 2 more good days before it hits again. With luck it may be 3 days and perhaps the next fever will be a mild bout with just a slight elevation in temperature.