What will happen to me physically?

How long do I have to live? It is difficult to predict when a person diagnosed as palliative will die. Much depends on the disease itself, how long you have been living with the disease, other illnesses, and serious concerns such as weight, nutritional status, presence of organ failure, current infection, bleeding tendencies and emerging medical conditions.

Months to live: In general, when you are stable month to month, you have months to live. During this phase, you may notice little change in function other than increasing fatigue and gradual loss of appetite.

Weeks to live: When you are changing weekly, you have weeks to a month.

The Final Stages: When you become bed bound, and unable to do any activity, it usually means you are in the final stages. When organs start to fail, the time left quickly shortens, especially if the kidneys, heart or lungs are affected. If your condition is deteriorating every 2-3 days, you have days to weeks to live, and if changing daily, then hours to days.

Appetite: Gradually, your interest and ability to eat and drink will decrease. Initially this causes a flurry of concern as everyone tries to feed you!!, but then appreciates you are truly dying and this process is irreversible. This stage can go on for some time, especially if there is no overlying or acute medical event. Your caloric and energy requirements are few if you are spending all your time in bed.

Consciousness: When your intake is reduced to sips or simple mouth care, your state of consciousness may start to shift to drowsiness or confusion, which can be an expected part of the experience close to death. Medication may or may not be necessary during this time. Family, friends and your health care team would be with you in some combination most or all of the time and your comfort, would be their utmost concern.

Incontinence, Dependence: As your illness progresses, you will need to rely on others for much of your care, including personal hygiene and assistance in going to the bathroom. Elsewhere in this site, we explain in more detail the care issues likely to arise and how those around you can best meet them.

Pain: Almost universally patients are concerned that they will be in pain, and fear it will not be treated properly. You health care team is there to make sure that, if anything, pain will be treated if present. This is both an art and science, and not simply “more morphine”, or “going to the hospital”. Great effort goes into understanding the nature of your pain, and the best measures to meet it. There is some calculated trial and error to ensure the right drug or method of relief is used to the greatest effect for each patient. As a patient responds in their own way to medication, and there is no test to be done to know what will work, a detailed assessment, close observation and periodic changes will be recommended. This is not guesswork on the part of the team, it is individualized treatment. The best results are achieved with regular and good communication with your caregivers.