Struggling with horrible final hours

[Needtochangethings]

I'm hoping this isn't triggering for anyone else but it's something I'm struggling to comprehend.

A week ago my lovely father passed away at home. He had been diagnosed with very late stage cancer two months prior and it had made its way to his brain.

He was keen to stay at home and so, we did everything we could to make this happen. We adapted the house - including hospital bed and over the final few days he deteriorated quickly, mostly unconscious, with a driver delivering pain relief and a relaxant.

All was going 'well', while he wasn't awake/alert, we'd play his favourite music, chat to him, friends and family visited.

We had all presumed he would drift off peacefully in his sleep, as everyone seems to say in these situations.

However a couple of hours before he died, he suddenly started crying out in pain. It was the middle of the night and while we had a care worker with us and a neighbour who's a doctor came round, neither were able to administer any pain relief.

It took an hour for help (nurses) to arrive and give him extra morphine. He then did calm down but then about an hour later he died.

It was incredibly traumatic for me and my mum and siblings to witness, and we are struggling to process what happened.

How can I come to terms with what happened? I never thought his life would end like this.

My dad died and his final days haunt me. I thought the morphine driver would mean he was essentially free from pain and not really conscious. This was not the case. I am haunted by his cries, facial expressions and eyes. We wouldn’t let an animal suffer like that.

Hi OP, I’m so sorry for your loss.

I’m a community nurse and I wanted to echo the PP who said the matron had ushered her out of the room at the end of life.

The last hours and minutes of someone’s life aren’t always easy or visually peaceful, unfortunately we have lost a lot of our traditions and cultural practices around death and so it becomes very unfamiliar, really frightening.

Obviously not being there at the time I can’t say that your lovely dad wasn’t in pain. But, what I will say is that the conscious perception of pain, of swallowing, of the environment we are in is very different in the last moments of life as the body begins it’s final shut down. We often give pain relief in conjunction with a sedative to calm and to relieve the symptoms of dying, but there’s training coming from well regarded palliative care research that suggests that these noises are involuntary reflexes that while understandably very concerning for the family aren’t traumatic for the dying person.

I hope you can find comfort knowing you honoured your dad’s end of life wishes and you did the very best for him as he died. Be kind to yourself, grief is difficult to navigate

I think we are less used to death now. I would imagine that in earlier generations most people died at home, with little pain relief available. I know my husband had similar difficult feelings when there was a delay getting morphine for my dying father in law. I am sorry for your loss, but the main thing is that your parent spent their final days in the place where they most wanted to be.

@BabbleBee reading this brought me great comfort, thank you for the insight

@cannaecookrisotto I'm so sorry you experienced this too. You are absolutely right about how he wouldn't want me to dwell on it and I think that is a really positive message about trying to not let it tarnish your memory, I will, with time repeat that to myself

I would say that bereavement counselling both individual and in a group could be good. Also if you still feel the same way ina few months time do consider e m d r therapy.

@StevieNicksfan this must have been so incredibly traumatising for you, I'm so sorry you had to go through this when you must have been desperate to 'just' grieve

@waterlego I'm so sorry you went through this twice.

@Nomowmay I wish you had been able to escape it the second time too.

I'm so sorry OP, it is awful and nothing can prepare you for it. I was with my mum when she died. I told all her lovely friends that she slipped away peacefully in her sleep, because what good would it have done if I'd told them the truth?

Maybe there is someone you can talk to about this - a minister of your faith if you have one, or a bereavement counsellor perhaps. You could ask your GP surgery if there are any local support groups.

I don't think this is true. The pain relief was less sophisticated for sure but I'm not sure that much has changed in terms of how people die. In the 80s I was in the house when my grandparents died in rural Ireland - they had managed pain relief.

Unfortunately traumatic & unpleasant deaths happen, have in the past & can still do now, but it shouldn't be the case.

I've had occasion to see dignified pain free deaths & it is an entirely different feeling & experience (for the bereaved). When this happens, it does make sense of the phrase 'beautiful death'

@Needtochangethings

I hope some of the shared experiences here have helped, even though awful.

I put the situation entirely out of my mind for a while & focused on the dad I remembered. Not a long term solution but it helped for a time.

Take care of yourself ❤️