Lots of drugs to prevent pain in this country.
Sometimes that isn't even an option. My bosses wife died of gall bladder cancer a few years ago. He describes her end as horrific and agonizing. I don't remember the details but he told me that hospice would not give her the pain medication that she needed, for fear that it would kill her. I seem to also recall that he said that it was very difficult to deliver the pain meds due to the damage that the chemo had done and her inability to swallow. I think that they were giving her methadone via suppositories.
My father had congestive heart failure, and hospice was called.
In his last days it wasn't pretty. He was in increasing agony as his organs shut down and died within his body.
Hospice was administering morphine. The nurse left for the night, and me and my brothers had to watch and listen as he moaned, screamed and was in misery, and was in a state of unconsciousness, that only the horrific pain was able to penetrate.
The nurse from hospice came in the morning.
I described what he went through the previous night, and told her to "give him enough to make the pain stop". She understood.
10 minutes later he passed.
