My husband has started to not give me eye contact or much in the way of recognition. He is not speaking much anymore and if he does it almost never makes sense.

He is in stage 7 and on comfort care only. Yesterday I was talking with my sister and she made an interesting comment. When her husband was dying of cancer, he stopped making eye contact with her a couple of weeks before he died. This frustrated her. The hospital told her that it was part of the process and he was starting to disconnect from the world, she should not insist on his making eye contact with him as doing that was keeping him here.

I feel that my husband is becoming more and more disconnected with the world. I know this is part of the disease but he will usually connect with me with some effort on my part. So, is this a good thing to do or a bad thing? Are my actions keeping him here and slowing him down on the path he needs to go?

I agree with divvi ... let him know you are near. Talk to him, hold his hand, let him feel your love. He may be too tired or distracted or internally focused to try to communicate with you with his eyes, but he does hear you and your presence does help him.

I have told him that it is okay to go. The last time I had that discussion with him he was very focused on me. I think he understood in some part of him. I have told him that I will be okay and that he did a great job setting things up for me so that I could handle it. In other words, I have tried to be positive to him.

The feeling that he is slipping away is still there and it is hard to put my finger on the differences in him for this but there are differences.

Thanks for the thoughts.

My prayer is that his passing is painless. My prayer is comfort and peace for you.