h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

This post has been removed.

This post has been removed.

Sadly my father passed away on 3rd December 2007 on my parents wedding Anniversay. He had a terrible night a week before he passed away and we had to call out the emergency doctor to administer intravenous Morphine. The doctor that came out wasn’t the normal one, he was part of the call out team from Croydon so knew nothing about my fathers history. He administered the whole capsule when his prescribed dose was a tenth of that amount. My dad slept heavily from that point. It was a relief to see him out of pain but both my mother and I exchanged looks as we wondered if he had received an overdose.

The doctor said on meeting my father in terrible pain “You poor man” and then injected the phial of morphine into my dad.

The next morning I went with my father to the hospice, he was collected by ambulance and in a semi conscious state. My mother followed to the hospice in her car.

On arrival at the hospice, my dad was taken to the ward and we were spoken to by the consultant. She asked us what we hoped the outcome of his stay in the hospice would be. “I replied to help him manage the pain and then come home”. He was thirsty, so I helped him drink water through a straw. He drank a lot. He was still not 100% aware of his surroundings.

We stayed with him and then I continued to visit him in the hospice for the next 5 days. I was shown how to give him an aromatherapy hand massage by one of the nurses, this was to help calm him and give human contact, comfort for both of us. I kept the telly tuned into his favourite programmes as I wasn’t aware if he could hear or not and didn’t wanted him to have a familiar routine. After a bad night the nurses informed me he was in pain so they brought him into the nurses station with them. He was then placed in a morphine induced coma without drips and the only liquid he consumed was when I squeezed a sponge filled with water in his mouth. The nurses explained that to offer my father food or water in the form of a drip would be crueller for him and draw the end out. My mother sadly had flu during his last week and not realising it was likely to be his last week didn’t visit as she didn’t want to make him or the other patients unwell. The hospice nurses were fantastic, they told me to take a break and as it was December I decided to walk into town. It was then I broke down, seeing all the shoppers planning their christmas’s and realising what lay ahead for my father and family.

I was told to go home and sleep as my dads passing wasn’t imminent. When I arrived home I received a call telling us to return to the hospice as he was about to go. We all bundled into the car but were greeted by the hospice nurse with tears in her eyes and outstretched hands to ours…and said “I am so sorry he has just gone”..we were too late, but at least he wasn’t alone. I am so glad he wasn’t in hospital but the hospice when he passed. My sister hadnt realised how bad he had got as she was battling her own battle with Cancer and had just had a hysterectomy, she was able to visit him but so shocked how unwell and close to dying he had become since she had last seen him.

I hope this helps others..