hospice case 9277467
I had an interesting conversation with a hospice nurse today, who informed me that she wanted to be my nurse of record, but was refraining due to her having spent time with me and feeling that she could not provide me with adequate care, not from a clinical standpoint, but from that of one who has already, in a short period of time, become close to my spirit. She had already become attached and was not doing well with my upcoming loss of life. The fear she spoke of, real. Her apologies she made, accepted as truth.
Her truthfulness made me smile and I was honored by her ability to not only share what she was feeling but express how she was feeling in the same conversation.
I am also grateful to know that she is not too far from my case management and overseas my medical care from a distance that allows her to research and then suggest proper care when I am spoken of in a team meeting. By taking the emotion out of the equation, which I am assured, does not go away, she has a better understanding of what is going on and I can convey, as only one person can, how I am feeling so that others are able to understand partially, but never fully, what I am experiencing, strictly from a symptoms standpoint and feel the need to provide me with good care.
I understand that hospice is about comfort and I further understand hospice that I have dealt with is a bit taken back by my youth, my own medical knowledge and my willingness to share completely and fully who and what I am. The thought that I know I am terminal and I am young complicates an already demanding and often draining line of work, the work of comforting medically, the actively dying.
The fact that my youth takes much of what has been book taught and reviewed and even witnessed over the years as something untaught and unseen and thus, makes a worker's experience less important and their ability to accept and embrace a disease, almost, as I do more important.
The ability for anyone to love as your own is quite challenging when one knows that the end result is going to be the final chapter, in this case, my life.
Her truthfulness made me smile and I was honored by her ability to not only share what she was feeling but express how she was feeling in the same conversation.
I am also grateful to know that she is not too far from my case management and overseas my medical care from a distance that allows her to research and then suggest proper care when I am spoken of in a team meeting. By taking the emotion out of the equation, which I am assured, does not go away, she has a better understanding of what is going on and I can convey, as only one person can, how I am feeling so that others are able to understand partially, but never fully, what I am experiencing, strictly from a symptoms standpoint and feel the need to provide me with good care.
I understand that hospice is about comfort and I further understand hospice that I have dealt with is a bit taken back by my youth, my own medical knowledge and my willingness to share completely and fully who and what I am. The thought that I know I am terminal and I am young complicates an already demanding and often draining line of work, the work of comforting medically, the actively dying.
The fact that my youth takes much of what has been book taught and reviewed and even witnessed over the years as something untaught and unseen and thus, makes a worker's experience less important and their ability to accept and embrace a disease, almost, as I do more important.
The ability for anyone to love as your own is quite challenging when one knows that the end result is going to be the final chapter, in this case, my life.
posted by the warrior at 12:32 AM
1 Comments:
Hello Eric, I wanted you to know that I felt a good smile from you as you wrote this entry.
I was unpacking a box the other night and found one of my Thanatology course certificates. It brought up the class with interesting vividness-sudden loss grief instead of the grief that comes after a passing of a hospice case. I argued then as now that whether a death is expected and accepted as a reality or occurs suddenly, grief at the loss for those left behind is often unbearable without help.
The longer I was in hospice work, the more determined I became that my focus might need to be on the people left behind-including the professional caregivers. The feedback I got from some of the terminal folks encouraged me in this.
Hey, I wanted to be a chaplain:) Of course my pastoral focus would be on the 'still here' because I knew those who'd gone ahead were for the most part, in a great place where the comfort at the temporary separation was far better than even my best offerings.
To me, we are all born dying-what we call life is only one part of a magnificent journey through Eternity. I said this once and suffered the eye rolling at what people scorned as a cliche.
Twist 'em, I say! The fact is cliches come from somewhere-usually experience, and just because something is repeated over and again doesn't render it null or void. A truth is a truth is a truth.
It IS very hard for hospice workers to cope with the dying of a young person. It is a sickening waste to most people, and more so to someone in the healthcare field-even hospice, which is of course about death. I think the bitchiest nurse is probably the biggest softie at heart who HAD to grow a really hard shell...we all react to our wounds differently, doncha think?
I think this nurse is pretty brave to admit this connection that she feels constrains her objectivity.
You must be a pretty special guy to inspire this feeling in her.
Frankly, the dying can (and reasonably so, please don't misunderstand me) be a bit bitchy their own selves-and the folks around them feel their ability to be compassionate drain...Which is not always a bad thing, really, because we are all Someone and if everyone tipietoes around us as though we are glass we start to lose any connection to being Us-i.e. a good "You pinheaded ass!" from a loved one can be remarkably pleasant because it tells us we are still alive enough to piss someone off:).
Consider-the awareness of a terminal illness shortens one's shelf life, right, which is pretty damn depressing no matter how good or blah one's life might have been pre-diagnosis. It changes one, but not completely-we are who we are pretty much. (I have been known to tell a 'left behind' who confesses they hated Dad before and after he died or was even diagnosed-"Don't feel too bad; a jerk before they die is probably going to be a jerk after, too:) The reaction can be irratibility, argumentativeness, contrariness...and can make the dying rather unpleasant to be around.
However-to lack compassion for someone going ungently into what you probably know Dylan called the long good night is to lack basic humanity.
So, I'd have to say that you chose your new hospice team rather well!
Eric, if I may ask, what the hell is killing you at a young age?
One more thought-are you getting any counseling-pastoral/spiritual or otherwise? I ask because I have seen some things that lead me to believe that those who pass with unresolved issues find themselves really missing out on the Other Side. And no, this is NOT an attempt to get you to 'be saved/convert/repent' or any other revolting 'fundie' claptrap. I believe in God, not Jimmie Swaggert!
I bring it up at all because I sense some unresolved issues (gotta love psychobabble:) and I worry that once you cross-which your blog indicates may be way sooner than later-you will be caught up in those, instead of the wonder that awaits you.
Look, I know you are in no hurry-neither am I and frankly, my life is REALLY blah. But I KNOW there are beyond transcendent adventures awaiting all of us Over There, and I have got to know you somewhat (I say somewhat because you haven't blogged much about yourself before your diagnosis-you know, did you know a great love, have kids, were you an artist, or a banker, what?) I care. I don't want to think that when I get There I won't be able to find you because you are still lost in the fog of the whatever you brought across with you because no-one had the guts to help you get it all sorted out before...
To me it is as important an aspect of preparing to die as the will, the 'who is going to update my blog readers'/where to entomb my mortal remains, etc.
It is because I wish you Peace, Bianca
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