Question by treefingers53: How conscious is a person about to die from cancer?
My mother is in the final stage of pancreatic cancer. We have hospice care at our home and they always have a nurse with her in her room. Shes on a lot of pain medication and they say her liver and kidney’s are failing. How conscious is she? Shes not responsive but what is going on in her mind?
I’ve been too afraid to go up to her room because i’m disturbed by how skinny and jaundiced she is.
Essentially i’m asking even though shes sleeping all but 25 minutes a day is she suffering?

Best answer:

Answer by Skittles are M & M wannabees
First, I want you to know that I am very sorry for your loss. My own father died on Jan. 4th, 2008 under Hospice care from metastatic prostate cancer. He too was very thin and pretty well comatose when he died. He was on massive amounts of pain medication, so I can only hope that they helped to elevate some of his pain. Here is some good information from the Hospice website:

http://www.hospicenet.org/html/preparing_for.html

In the end, his death was very peaceful, as I hope your mom’s will be. His breathing became slower and slower until he just stopped.

My hope is that the Lord my dying like childbirth…yes it’s painful, but there are pain relief measures that can help one get through it and in the end it’s so worth it and you don’t even remember the pain.

You’re in my thoughts and prayers.

Know better? Leave your own answer in the comments!