Mom was moved to a Hospice facility this afternoon. For how long, we don't know. We're supposed to meet with a social worker tomorrow morning to figure out what to do next. Technically she's still under palliative care, but she's wasn't able to stay in the hospital in her condition.

Mom is still insistent that she wants to go home. To die.

That's going to take some doing, and it's not something that we can Decide to half-ass, nor is it something that we can decide to do as we please (even on my mother's say-so). Her state has to be assessed, her needs need to be determined, the kinds and timing of care need to be figured out...

...

Here's the thing.

Regardless of how well mom is or is not doing at this moment, she is still a cancer patient who has decided to let nature take its course. Unfortunately, this means that, at some point Pain management will need to be initiated. What happens if she needs morphine again to handle the pain? That's not something that we can do ourselves, trained specialists need to handle that. Regardless of the legal situation that opiates are in. That means 24 hour care, which is most easily given in a hospice like the one she's in now. There is also no guarantee that she'll be in a state to leave the hospice for home. She turned around remarkably once; she may just as easily take a turn for the worse with little warning.