Hi, I'm new here. My mam has been living with lung cancer for the best part of four years - Adenocarcinoma with a pleural effusion. There have been ups and downs, and as a family we've all coped together with them and through it the specialist and Macmillan nurses at the hospital had been great.
Things took a turn for the worse at the end of November when we were told the immunotherapy treatment wasn't working for her and since then she has deteriorated. We've not really had, or I guess needed much in the way of support since then, but in the last couple of weeks she has gone down hill quite quickly.
The GP came out to my parents yesterday for a review and they discussed and agreed a do not attempt CPR - I guess what they used to be a DNR and gave my dad a presectiption for several injectible meds and said to call the district nurse or 111 if she needs them.
Whilst I guess I knew this stage was coming, they seem to have given very little info around this. I called the district nurse line today to try and understand what we need to do when and the nurse I was put through to was really helpful, so we know if the pain ge ya too much for the oromorph to take it away or if she gets nauseous or agitated we can call them to start her on the meds the GP prescribed.
She is taking 5ml of oromorph every two hours which the GP said can be upped to 7.5ml and can be increased to every hour as needed. They also upped her slow release morphine to 40mg twice daily and stopped all her other meds for her blood pressure, stomach acid, abdominal cramps, partly I guess cos she's now having trouble swallowing and also because I guess there's not much point to her taking them at this stage.
I asked the district nurse if there was an estimate of how long my mam has left, because the GP hadn't put anything in the notes she couldn't advise me, but I guess it's now getting more like days than weeks but how do you tell?
My mam is at peace with the fact she is dying and she feels she hasn't got too long left, but for me and my Dad we're kind of not quite knowing how things will progress now on.
