I want to be as conscious as possible as I die. My aim is to be in divine contact with Eva; it is the only way I’ll be able to say goodbye to the love of my life. Consequently it is important to me that my consciousness is as clear as possible. For some time I have found it easy to contact my Self, the one I have experienced on Enlightenment Intensives. I sometimes doubted it was really that one, but whenever I put my attention on that Self I was full of love, smiling and in a mild bliss state. Here I want to share my experience of two medications and how they affected me. Although everyone’s reactions to medications are unique to them, I think some of my experiences may be helpful to other people.

 Fortunately I am in no pain, so I do not have to take any medication for that. However I do suffer from extreme breathlessness, loss of appetite, loss of energy and a host of minor ailments such as eczema and arthritis. Knowing this my GP suggested I take a course of steroids. Apparently this is an end of life treatment that can provide significant relief to people as they approach death. It is widely used in hospices. She said it should increase my energy and appetite, enable me to sleep better and would reduce the impact of the lung cancer significantly. So I decided to try it.

After two days on the steroid I was  amazed at the transformation of my body. My cough vanished. I was no longer bringing up spittle and phlegm every two minutes. My appetite returned and I put on some weight. I was sleeping soundly again instead of waking up every few hours. My eczema disappeared.  I was also full of energy, but this was frustrating since I remained breathless – it is frustrating wanting to do things and not being able to. Nevertheless I was able to do a great deal more than before taking the steroid (which was Dexamethasone). I wrote to our children telling them I had experienced a minor miracle and felt enormously better.

However on day 5 I woke up with a pounding headache and felt dizzy whenever I stood up. I experienced an intense pressure in my head that was extremely uncomfortable. And I realised that I had lost the capacity to be in touch with my Self. The headache and dizziness were sufficiently bad – and unresponsive to things like paracetemol – that I decided to cease taking the steroid. However this has to be done gradually; it took me a further 8 days to wean myself off the drug and a couple more days before I felt anything like normal. It was only a day or two after that that I was able to contact my Self again – and the joy I experienced when I did so dispelled any doubts about whether it was real or not. Incidentally during the weaning off phase I also noticed that my mood and emotions were often out of control – sometimes I was uncharacteristically depressed and other times unreasonably angry.

The other medication I have been using is oral morphine, also known as Oramorph. This was recommended as a way of reducing both my coughing and my breathlessness. And It has worked for both these. It does not banish either symptom, it just reduces the frequency and their impact. I have used it each morning (a single 5ml dose) because that is when I want to be physically active. (I like to do some gardening and carry out repairs.) It did not appear to have any negative effect on my consciousness – until I tried to visit my wise man (described here). Then I discovered that at a deeper level it was indeed affecting my consciousness and that to be clear of its (subtle) effect I had to abstain completely for two days. Obviously to be as clear as I want to be I will abstain from Oramorph for at least a week before my demise. I just hope I will know that far in advance, though everyone has advised me that I will. Apparently I will lose interest in food, will sleep more and become aware I am fading out. I also imagine that closer to the end physical activity will no longer be an option, so I’ll have no need to take the Oramorph.