You know that feeling you get when you’re sick, and you feel like laying in bed forever for however long it takes to get better? I don’t always realize how strong my body is or can be.
If you read my last post, you know that my mom went without food for 54 days before she died. When you read that or if you heard us say it, you were probably thinking “yeah right” or “no way!” I know. I was surprised and skeptical too.
When we started the no food journey, we asked how long someone had lived without food. Any guesses? The nurses there said the longest they had seen someone live without food and liquid was about 13 days. They stated that they had seen someone who had liquids, but no food, live about a month. I was thinking my mom was going to be somewhere in the middle of those estimates.
They started giving my mom some pain medication. She was taking morphine by mouth, but it made her itch so bad that she was scratching until she bled. So, they started giving her cream that had Benadryl and a couple of other medications mixed in to help with the itching. Then, she stopped the morphine.
They were able to find another medicine that didn’t cause my mom to itch. Dilaudid. It’s apparently five times stronger than morphine. She was getting that multiple times a day, still along with the cream. I’m pretty sure the cream would go on every two or three hours. When she had more pain, they would decrease the amount of time between doses or increase the amount given.
Up until the last few days, my mom was sleeping some, but she was still alert and coherent when she was awake. Even with the high doses of medication. Everyone who was caring for my mom would say things like, “I would be out if I were on that much medication” and “we don’t know how she’s still here.” One nurse told us my mom was on enough medication to kill a horse. Um, what?
It makes you think. Is someone sneaking my mom food? Did the doctors get it wrong? Should we go for more tests? What’s going on here?
My mom was strong. Maybe more important than her body being strong, was her will. She wanted to live. She wanted to see and be with her family. She wasn’t giving up or going out without a fight.
The mind and the body are powerful things. I hope I remember this the next time I feel sick.