Morphine > Hydrocodone

Happy Friday, everyone! Mom is doing pretty well given the circumstances. We've switched her from Hydrocodone to Morphine a week ago. The Hydrocodone pills were getting to be too hard for Carolyn to swallow and required her to drink more water than her body wanted her to consume ... so the pills usually ended coming back up after trying so hard to get them down. Morphine has not only been easier to ingest in its liquid format, but it has also helped her mind be a LOT clearer than before. She keeps saying over and over again how happy she is and how content she is. It's a great change from when she was anxious and confused before.

Her pain keeps going up though so we have to keep increasing frequency of morphine to every 2 hours. Which means I'm getting up every two hours throughout the night. At this point, her body is preparing to shut down. She doesn't eat anything anymore, she is experiencing pain in new areas, sleeping most of the day, her breathing is unsteady and uneven, etc. She is so weak that she can't even sit up by herself. I have to help pull her up. 

She is enjoying this warmer weather - requesting the windows to be open every day. Once a day we try to get out on the upstairs back deck where she sits in her wheelchair for 10 minutes to enjoy the sunshine on her face. Her pain is pretty high though that she can't stay out there for much longer than that. Some days it isn't even worth it to her and she declines the opportunity to go outside. For the most part she doesn't leave her bed.

I hope you are all enjoying this beautiful weather as well. If you see a robin, say a prayer for Carolyn! She loves loves spotting robins in the spring time.