Syringe driver

[mjpcphjp]

From others experience, how long can you live with a syringe driver? This was put in place Thursday, patient is sleeping a lot but no longer in pain. It's terminal secondary liver cancer, primary started in colon. At home as that's where she wanted to be. Food had pretty much stopped and fluid intake is very minimum. Very yellow in colour but this has been the case for awhile. Weight loss is rapid past few weeks. Set ourselves up for a week before her passing and hoping she holds on to see her only grandchild tomorrow. I'm expecting another in March and we've been fortunate she made the last scan.
I'm very anxious and stressed at the moment and waiting to see the midwife to put my mind at rest as I'm worried about the baby. Tough times 

Hi

I work in Palliative and End of Life Care.

Syringe drivers can be used indefinitely and for various reasons (pain, nausea, agitation) when unable to swallow oral medications.

Unfortunately there is no way of knowing how quickly someone will die. I've had patients that have been unconscious and not ate or drunk for days and others that have been fairly stable and deteriorated rapidly, dying in hours.

Normally, breathing will change and become fast and shallow then the gaps between breaths will become longer and there may be some noisy, bubbling breathing sounds, with peripheries getting increasingly cool to touch.

Normally syringe drivers at End of Life will contain an opioid analgesic and something to stop any agitation such as Midazolam or Levo. There may also be a medication added to the driver to reduce secretions that cause noisy breathing. These allow for a usually very peaceful death.

I hope that some of this helps.