## via Discord: 251126
## We have a "northeast production tech" community server, and per our
## tradition of toasting lost colleagues over the years, I created a new
## channel called "fuck-cancer" to drop the first parts of this into.
## In real life this takes the form of raising a glass of fine Scotch at
## our tech parties and loudly uttering the same sentiment.

## This begins with the assumed context that folks reading the channel were
## already aware of my situation -- those who asked "why aren't you leaving
## *right now*?!" were assured that things were in good hands and there was
## nothing I could help with by being in the area a day earlier, necessarily
## phrased as "get off my back" about it at some point -- I was going to finish
## out my work for the weekend event, a co-worker kindly offered to transport
## my gear back to Boston and hold it until I eventually returned, and I was
## on my way south the following Monday morning.  This was the first update I
## posted.  If you're unfamiliar with the original situation, you should be
## reading the next section called "backstory".

I got into town last night and went immediately to the hospice place; Mom was
about as overjoyed as she was capable of to see me!  We talked for a bit; the
hospice facility actually wants her out of there because unlike my original
impression, "hospice" is not necessarily a place people go to die, it's where
they go for an acute situation to be handled and stabilized with palliative
means, i.e. enough painkillers on a regimen to keep things under control.
That includes a transdermal patch with some kind of fentanyl derivative,
calibrated in micrograms per unit-time delivery -- I have no idea how those
work, but it establishes a baseline of the amount of painkiller needed, and
then peaks are handled with additional doses of hydromorphone [a morphine
derivative].  Once on a regimen, they want patients moved to some other
longer-term care facility.  This morning we'll have a big meeting with the
facility doc and the hospice nursing-care folks and gawdknows who-all to
try and start working this out.

Mom actually wanted to go back to her normal home, even if that would mean 24x7
nursing-capable coverage from her third-party care outfit.  For that level
they would run in shifts, so someone would be at the house awake and ready
to handle things, and otherwise sit around bored, to the tune of like
$6000 / week and the intrusiveness of someone hanging around essentially
doing nothing the whole time.  We got a taste of this back in 2022, so I know
the drill already, but sheez, that's a lot.

## [clarification: we're *not* doing home-care bit, it's a logistical nightmare
## in addition to being ridiculously expensive.]