Morphine

Morphine
06042012.2150

Mum said she hardly slept last night. She looked so tired, though her eyes seemed to be wide open, as if she saw something that alarmed her.

The way she spoke, she sounded like she was tortured beyond imagination, as if she had been kept awake by something, even though she desperately wanted to sleep, but could not.

"The ceiling, it was tumbling down! I saw it...!" she exclaimed. She pointed to a part of the ceiling, where a tile was raised a bit. "I was so scared..."

It is painful enough to see mum be so tormented by her bodily discomforts. This morning I encountered for the first time what it feels like to deal with someone who appears to be seeing things. A friend of mine told me how difficult it is to deal with a family member who is losing mental clarity, how painful it is to see someone's thoughts and logic deteriorate. I wondered to myself what is worse... to see your loved one's body waste away, or to see your loved one's brain rot away. And what does it feel like to have to deal with both?

Luckily though, as the anaesthetist reassured me, mum's delirium and "seeing things" may be attributed to the morphine drips that has been administered periodically since her surgery. It's supposed to remove the extreme pain from an open wound that has only been stitched together. But morphine used on some people can induce delirium, hallucinations and dreams. Perhaps what mum is experiencing, her many and random dreams over the past few days, and seeing things like the ceiling collapsing, is due to the morphine. Once the drugs wear off and is stopped completely tomorrow or so, she should be back to "normal".

But a thought did cross my mind... As the cancer progresses, there may be a day when we have to rely on morphine to make mum's life and body bearable. The dosage this time is administered in a controlled manner, and adjusted according to her level of pain. But look at the effect it already has on mum's mind and sleep... Could it be that when that day comes, when mum has to rely on morphine to advance her quality of life that she could become even more lost and be even more disturbed by the sideeffects?