I went for a bike ride this morning and my iPod greeted me with this Lavender Diamond song because the universe apparently likes a good joke. Enjoy, comrades!
Yesterday Karen slipped further away from us. Our dear friend Cliff (one of my two best men at our wedding) tacked a visit to our home onto the end of a very long day that included a red eye flight from Hawaii, moving into a temporary apartment, and a full day's work. He took Karen's hand and said her name and she opened her eyes and smiled. Cliff leaned over to kiss her but she was pulled back into the fog before his lips even reached her forehead. Later that night, Karen would whisper a slurred "hi" to Miranda. She hasn't spoken since.
The fog she is lost in now is no longer a pharmaceutical one. For the first time since hospice started she slept through the night without any middle of the night or early morning pain scares. She went longer without pain meds than she has in forever. It is clearly the disease keeping her down now. Still, it was, thankfully, a peaceful night.
Well, for her anyway. I had a pretty hard time falling asleep myself. Karen's hospital bed is right next to mine and her ongoing decline has left her with a ragged nightmare of a periodic wheeze. That death-rattle-with-training-wheels is actually just a wee bit more ghastly to sleep next to than you'd imagine. I'm pretty tired today but I've been running on fumes for at least a week now.
But it doesn't look like Karen will be keeping me up much longer (though I'm still not expecting to get a whole lot of sleep anytime soon, like, oh, the balance of 2015 at least). She goes long stretches without taking a breath and when she does it is that tortured rattling mess. She is uncommunicative and does not respond to our voices or anything else. Her fingers have turned blue.
I imagine we'll be making our final goodbyes relatively soon.
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