Oh, Daisy! I'm so sorry you're going through this with two parents! I agree with Christine that everybody's situation is different and the hospice people are excellent resources. My mom passed away in November 2015, after being diagnosed with squamous cell carcinoma of the tongue in December 2014. They thought that she was a Stage 2 (clinically), but after her hemiglossectomy, they realized that her margins were not clear, the cancer had particularly devastating features, and that she had perineural invasion, too. She was in a great deal of pain even prior to her radiation and chemo, but after treatment, she suffered from trigeminal neuralgia, which was painful and made it difficult to sleep. She had what we thought of as 2 more recurrences, and one more hemiglossectomy, although her cancer never truly went away. In the end, when we realized it was growing back again, she was on hospice for less than a week before she passed away. The last time, the cancer was in her nasopharynx, moving back and down, and also close to her larynx and in her nodes, too. She had already been dependent on the feeding tube. I don't want to go into a lot of detail only because we don't know what your mom will experience; but my mom had an episode the morning she was supposed to start hospice, and I had to suction her so that she could breathe, and she was never conscious again. She was on a great deal of fentanyl (patch) and morphine sulfate. But know that the hospice people will walk you through this, and you should not be afraid to call and ask them questions even in the middle of the night. They'll provide pain relief-that, I think, is a big goal for them. Also, one thing I replay all the time-in the middle of the night the night before she grew unconscious and died, I was sleeping next to my mom to give my dad a break, and she got up to look in the closet-I thought she was trying to get to the restroom. So I was insistent that she let me help her get there. She was not steady on her feet, and she had some involuntary jerking either from the meds or from the tumor growth, so it was really hard to redirect her, and she had already fallen in the middle of the night before trying to get to the restroom, which is why I was sleeping with her. I remember being insistent that she let me help her to the restroom, and then helped her to the restroom and back to bed-I told her I'm sorry for being pushy, I loved her, and I just want her to be safe, we hugged and we both went to sleep. As I look back on this and after reading about what the dying experience, I now believe that my mom was trying to "pack" for her "journey." She died just two days later. I say this just to tell you that when people are on hospice, there are things that happen that we just don't understand. There may be powerful experiences that you'll never forget. There is no more important time to be with her if you can. Tell her you'll help her pack. I'm happy to answer any questions you may have.