"The death of my wife"

 It took my wife, a former nursing sister with rather too much 'respect' for Drs, far to long to be diagnosed with ovarian cancer. She was told twice to just get used to her symptoms (6 out of the 7 for ovarian cancer) and what did she expect for her age. Only when she saw a locum and it was too late did she get referred. The GP responsible is no longer there. That referral resulted in chemotherapy but a subsequent diagnosis of 'untreatable' due to the nature of the spread. Apart from that the local surgery were magnificent, attentive and pro active.

Even before Covid, there were issues getting her a bed in a cancer ward when it was necessary. However the service at Dorset County Hospital were great particularly the Chemo section. Ultimately she decided to come home to die although there was the offer of a hospital bed or a hospice place. Although my wife declined a bed at the hospice they were helpful with other things.

It was a bad time when my wife was in so much pain I called out the night duty nurses but although there were drugs in the house the ‘paperwork’ was not correct so she could not administer a top up dose despite the very evident pain. If they had left the house I would have tried to administer the drugs myself, even though I had no idea what I was doing

Thankfully, the Dr who discharged her to home did answer my question 'How long?' with the reply '3 to 4 days'. Then enabled me to plan to a degree but the truth was nearly 9 days. I thought I could cope but the 24 hour role was exhausting within a few days. I asked for help from Marie Curie and other nursing agencies but they would often say, We cannot confirm you will get help overnight until 4pm of the evening before the night shift.

This was useless. I attempted around day eight to hire a nurse from an agency and they said OK but then cancelled. I was forced to beg for help from them and in the end they found me a most excellent experienced nurse who, in the event, was able to get me from bed just as my wife was dying around midnight. Her support until around 5am and after the paramedic had certified death and removed the drugs and the body had been removed by the undertaker was second to none. She also stayed with me until I was ready to return to bed. The fact I only needed to make one call to NHS 111 who were aware of what was needed was excellent.

There was one issue during the 9 days at home when extra pain relief was needed overnight as Oromorph made her sick and there was some minor issue with the paperwork whereby a decimal point was missing in the dosage (although what the dose should have been was obvious (ie 1.5 NOT 15) whereby the night duty nurse, at 3am with my wife in considerable pain, declined to administer the pain relief without section from a Dr, which took a long time. Apart from this the palliative care team was really supportive.

That was a very distressing time, not least for my wife. She had a colostomy on one side and a drainer for the Ascites in the other. At one stage, overnight when I was the carer she was in so much pain she pulled both out to try and get some relief. That was very distressing. During the 9 days there were fluids-ascites, created by the cancer that needed to be drained   but it needed a vacuum bag into which it could be drawn. The surgery did not have enough and so this did not happen often enough. In the end I went to Joseph Weld hospice and asked the sister on duty if she could spare any. She was kind enough to let me have one of the two she had in stock and on deployment this brought great relief to my wife in her last couple of days.

I took advantage of the counselling offered by the palliative care team from the hospice six weeks after the death funeral and that was the best thing I ever did. I even made the counsellor cry, but it worked for me after 3 sessions