I wanted to stop in and thank you for your kind words. Wish I had been able to spend more time here, but as most of you know there is barely enough time on a good day to sit, and on bad days even eating meals is out of the question, and unfortunately not soon after I posted things took a turn for the worse here. Mom was told of her diagnosis on Jun 18th when her breathing had became severely impaired again due to the size of the neck tumor. She was hospitalized that night and an emergency surgery performed saturday the 19th to excise some of the tumor obstructing the airway. She came home on the 22nd with hospice in place. They were to visit us once a week for about an hour - we had a visit on the 24th, and another on July 2nd. They began to talk of perhaps a pain patch since the tumor had eaten to the esophagus making swallowing oral medications (or anything else) almost impossible..she told them she'd consider it. My mother passed away at home on July 7th. The last 3 days were the hardest I've ever had to face. It was 100 degrees here, she was semi conscious, very agitated and I couldn't even get her to sip water without causing her to choke. Pain meds had the same result. I won't go into the other details, it's not fair to the rest of the care givers out there, but those of you who have been thru it understand the exhaustion and frustration that kick in those last few days... I wouldn't wish this on anyone.
I will offer this advice - TAKE CARE OF YOURSELVES too! Make sure you have support system around you, take breaks, ask for help if needed (even if it's just here venting). I learned the hard way.
Thank you all again -
Kris