Dear Mermaid,

If you mother has opted for no treatment, you may want to considering linking her up with a palliative care team. Contrary to the popular thinking, palliative care aims to provide comfort to the patient and they just don't treat patients aggressively. They will, however, do what they can to keep the patient in comfort. When my husband was in palliative care, he had a nurse visit him once a week, he was given the appropriate pain medication (hydromorphone made him delirious, so he was given a very small dose of morphine 1/16 of a teaspoon to start), he was given antibiotics for his pneumonia as well. In addition, a personal support worker came three times a week to bathe him and to change the linens. So, don't wait too long to get your mom the comfort that she's hoping to have by leaving her worried about pain at this stage.