Until the end

M is still here with us for now....barely. He has not slipped into a coma yet. We thought maybe in the night he had. He is not fully awake and functional. His eyes refuse to open. He cannot sit up without starting to lean or fall. He started on morphine last night. He was grunting at 60 breaths per minute and nothing else was helping. He also started screaming out in pain. I really wondered if he would wake up this morning, but he surprised me by hopping up---sort of.

He is aggitated. His mind still WANTS to be himself. His body will not cooperate with him. Thankfully, we have an iPad. It has been a godsend for M in these last four months. This week, it is the only activity that he can do so that he can play. He struggles to even operate the iPad now, but at least he can sit and play games or watch movies and it satisfies his craving to be playing.

He stubbornly refuses to rest. He wants to sit up. He can't sit and he can't open his eyes but he fights it anyway. He drinks though his kidneys are barely functioning. He demands to eat, though he hasn't eaten in three months and his bowels have completely shut down now. He takes his oxygen tubing off, though it is the one thing that genuinely provides him comfort. He screams at anyone who tries to comfort him and calm him down. He just sits agitated, fighting death and refusing to go gently into this sleep. He's so much more peaceful when he does sleep. When he is awake, it is torture for him and for us now.

I don't know how much longer he has. We continue to provide liquid morphone and ativan for comfort and try to push oxygen, also for comfort. We continue his Bipolar meds for as long as he is able to swallow. We give him the iPad and at least one sibling to help him navigate it, since he cannot fully do it alone anymore. He is surrounded by his family and now we simply wait for what has to pass to do so. It could happen quickly, or it could be slow and torturous.

Last night, my sister called and offered to pay to put him into an inpatient hospice facility. I was too busy working with him to contemplate what she offered. This morning, I remember this is the same sister who informed me in January that I didn't love him. This sister who has been so abused and lost without unconditional love in her life that she cannot fathom that I would find her offer odious and offensive. If she thinks I have walked this long walk with M for four years, battled his demons and his broken body and loved him through it all, and then will walk away from him now, she doesn't know what love is. Yet, she doesn't believe I love him, so of course she doesn't believe I CHOOSE to be here. I promised M a long time ago that I would stay beside him and hold his hand to the end. I'm not about to break that promise because it will make her more comfortable than watching us stand here as he fights death to the bitter end.