Painfully Ever After ...

Today was hellacious. The doctors, while they cannot find the cause for Mark's pain and cannot offer us any kind of alternate treatment, want to wean him off the morphine completely within a year. Today, when I took him to the ER for some bleeding, his pain spiked while I was out stretching and making a couple of phone calls. When I came back, he was sobbing and shaking and writhing in pain. They gave him an anti-inflammatory, but they wouldn't give him any narcotics. He and I and everyone else know that he is physically addicted to these meds, but they told us when he went on them that that would happen. Now they want to take him off of them? without offering him any other kind of treatment? or even any hope that eventually things will -- or even might -- get better? What are we supposed to hang onto to keep us going? It all just feels a little overwhelming tonight.