The dying get no privacy

My boyfriend the hunky scientist was here for the weekend, and it made a huge difference to my peace of mind. With my sister sick all of last week, I'd had no support here and I was depressed and supremely overtired. My sister felt better enough on Friday to come down for the day so THS and I could go do normal things for a little while. Also, she cooked a really good dinner.
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A Hospice RN was here on Friday morning and saw how we were having to sit in back of Mom to prop her up in her bed whenever she wanted a drink of water. We'd just started having to do that, so we weren't really thinking about it much. She said "You should think about getting a hospital bed. I can order it right away." I was sentimental about Mom dying in her own bed for about 30 seconds, and then said OK. That afternoon a delivery truck showed up and a hospital bed was moved in next to Mom's bed in less than an hour. It has an air mattress on top of the regular mattress, and the air mattress inflates and deflates in different sections continually to keep Mom from getting pressure sores. Handy that.
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Mom's brain function is really suffering from the cancer invading her head and from the 90 milligrams of oxycontin she's getting every 24 hours. She's starting to make less and less sense (about 5% of what she says is actually related to what we say to her), and the gatekeeper is taking a holiday. This morning she told me I was full of shit. I took it in good humor. I just went to wake her and give her a swig of water, and she said "Oh hi! I'm on the phone with my sister." I apologized for interrupting and told her I'd be right back then.

One area Mom still had some independence in until recently was her bathroom habits. She still wanted to walk the few steps to the bathroom just off her bedroom and she wanted privacy in there (of course). So we'd been helping her walk there, getting her situated, and then leaving and closing the door. She'd always just done her thing and then come right back out. But starting Friday that changed. She started forgetting how long she'd been in there. We did our usual thing, but then after 15 long minutes I walked up to the door and said said her name. "What!" She replied. "Are you OK?" "Yes--I'll just be a few minutes." 20 more minutes went by, followed by another inquiry and another rebuff ("April, stop bothering me. Go use the other bathroom!"). Of course, my boyfriend had just arrived so he got to witness this new care wrinkle unfolding in real time. I let 20 more minutes go by. "Mom?" "WHAT?!?" "Mom, you've been in there an hour." "I have NOT! Now just go away and leave me alone." That was it. I apologized, then opened the door, swooped in and got her up and out of there. I did not rate high in her esteem at that point. Every bathroom break since then has been the same routine, only now we give her 15 minutes tops, particularly if it happens to be 3 a.m.. If it's daytime and we're feeling indulgent or want to finish a chore, she gets 20 minutes. Heck--she's just sitting there. With side rails. She's too weak to do the standing up it would take to fall over. But after that, we sally forth and endure her anger. It never lasts long.