Jul 18
A year ago, today, Mary L. stayed home from work to help with Mary B. Mary B was sleeping more but kept waking up and asking for pain medication. The amount of morphine she was prescribed was 2mg every 6 hours. She was suffering, and it tore my heart out.
Mary L suggested a hospice service and got on the phone to find one to cover this area. Because she is worked with Duke, she started there. She found out they did not cover Person County. She soon found a service out of Burlington who would come that day and could prescribe higher doses of morphine.
The hospice service came quickly, did an assessment and order the drugs. Mary L went to get them and as soon as she got back, we got meds into Mary B to stop the pain. The hospice doctor increased her morphine to 20mg as needed. The difference for Mary was profound. I finally felt she was not going to suffer in her last days.
Thank you, Mary L. Mount
Later that night, I asked Mary B how her pain was on a scale of 1-10. She finally was out of pain and it showed. Her face was so much more relaxed.
It was one of the hardest days of my life. It was the day I had to shift my selfish thinking from wanting to desperately save Mary, to concentrate on helping her transition from this life. You can see it in my face in this picture.
