26 Hours And Still Awake

Hi my friends. I have now been up for over 26 hours with dozing in between. It is not me only doing this, it is Al too. Hospice says it is a restless syndrome right before the dying. I don’t know what it is and I can’t identify it any other way than fidgety.

Yesterday I posted but then I deleted it. It was a post on my feelings at the moment and not the entire scene. I guess I don’t do well when I have no sleep. I am crabby and can be short-tempered. I cry and I feel guilt at not being able to help Al in any way.

He is in God’s hands now and all I can do is make sure he is dry. Comfort is not something I can give him it seems. No matter what position I place him in he is not comfortable. I can sense his fear of dying but no matter what I try to say to make it feel better, it doesn’t work. Once again I think this is between him and God.

I guess when I am weak I become fearful, and this is why I deleted the post. I kept thinking afterwards, what will my friends think if they learn of me being angry, frustrated and sounding whiny.

Al sleeps about twenty minutes out of a couple of hours. He is on very high doses of medications but they aren’t working. Hospice was here for several hours today. The Hospice minister dropped by to see Al. Al had requested my son to come by a few times. I asked my son to please come over and he did.

The Hospice team, the Doctors and the Pharmacist are all working together and by Monday sometime there is to be a new medication that will enable Al’s body to go into a deeper sleep to help him pass into the dying process.

Al had been begging the Hospice nurse to give him a needle or a shot to end his life, but of course it is illegal here and the nurse told him she could not help him out. This only agitated Al more and this in turn caused more agitation from him.

Many times today I have cried out to God, what are you waiting for? He wants to come home, help him. I can’t sense a God here in our house, or even in Al’s bedroom. It doesn’t mean there isn’t a God here, it just means I feel nothing but tiredness and I feel almost numb anymore.

I have seen Al reaching up to the ceiling with his arms trying to leave. Talk about a tear jerker. It bring tears to my eyes instantly as if I am watching in slow motion a movie that is playing out and I have guessed the ending but have yet to see it.

I am not sure what I am running on. I can only imagine what Al is running on. It must be burnt fumes of earlier energy. Al is wetting extremely heavy. Almost every fifteen minutes he has soaked a brief. He is still drinking and eating but not very much. He has some sort of brown colored stuff that is coming from his mouth.

I keep dabbing it clean with toothettes. His mouth is dry but I imagine part of it is the medicine he is on. He sweats and then he freezes. He stares at me with those big blue eyes and when I asked him what do you want to say, he says nothing.

Rhino the cat will come in and jump on my lap and put his paws on my face or give me a kiss. I know without knowing cat language that Rhino feels the emotions running throughout the house.

I am ready to let Al go. I can no longer stand to watch his suffering and I have told Al many times to please go see Mom and Dad. Al has told me several times today that he loves me with all of his heart. When Randy, my son came to see him, he told him goodbye.

This tore at me so bad I broke out crying right there in front of Al. So life here at our house is its own living hell. It includes a lot of love, heartache, anger, tears, sleepiness, restlessness and any other emotions you can think of.

I will try to post once a day for now. Al does not like to be alone. He can be asleep and as soon as I tip toe out of the room he is wide awake. I love all of you, my friends and I think of you often.