The best thing about entering Hospice is pain management.
They are simply the best.
After the build up, execution and joys of a last Halloween celebration with Sarah and Che, I crash and begin intensely hurting for the next 6 days.
I hurt and can't walk, stand, sit, lay, or get up without stabbing shards of pain shooting everywhere. I cry, moan and wince.
Choices become easier when you don't have any, so I became a Hospice patient.
In no time, in home care was established, the pain comes under control, and plans are made on how we'll continue.
Sweet and smooth.
The bad side of Hospice is it's a real mind game becoming a patient.
I sure as Hell don't feel like one, though I clearly met all the admissions criteria.
I can't deny being impressed that we're now totally equipped with every possible drug to treat whatever might cause me pain later.
I really like this safety net.
After two years of nothing but red wine and weed for treatment, my body is jacked being full of medicine again.
I'd forgotten about side effects and I've learned that there is a pill for every symptom.
It's crazy feeling medicine flowing through my body again after so long, but the pain is gone.
It's so much more emotional than we thought, mostly introspective, realizing the expectation is I'll be gone in 6 months (or they lobby I remain a patient or kick me off until I can come back on).
That's sobering.
It's also not how we've done things to get us this far but we're adapting.
"HEY CHE!" I yell.
"Yeah," she calls from her room.
"Will you bring me another Oxy?"
"Sure Dad," she happily skips out to get me one and chronicle the time on the board.
It's a funny way to live now, but after a week of deathly nights, I'm still here, not dead yet, delighting in the moments I can still grab hold.
It's taken several days to work through the mind games that cancer, and entering Hospice, bring.
And now here, we are.
"Hey Hospice Honey," Sarah calls from the other room, "let's go out for lunch."
And we had the best time on my first date as a Hospice patient!
It was life giving, as we laughed and planned together.
We're still uncertain of all the rules, protocols and Doctor's orders being a Hospice patient means, but we're ready to live it up a little more, and so we're going to try, by incorporating what they bring to what we already do.
We squeeze every single shred of living out of dying so they'll be absolutely none left behind.
🌴🌴🌴
My Celebration of Life delightfully lingers but is coming to an end. Help me make sure Sarah and Che will be fine without me.
Please consider being part of their future at https://gofund.me/ffda4f4b
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