At 9:00 PM on Saturday, I arrived at our hospice house in answer to a page from the staff there. I was grateful for a call early in the evening, which might stave off calls at 3 A.M. (remember might). I went to the room of the patient having pain issues to find a smallish elderly woman, anxiously squirming in her bed. Her right leg from mid-calf to foot was black, her abdomen extremely distended.
We will call our lady Mrs. R, who said as I entered her room "oh, can you do something about this pain in my leg?! They said it is clotted off. Can I do anything to get some circulation to it?" I attempted to explain that since there was a clot in the main artery to her leg, that there was no circulation to the leg, and there was no way to improve that without major surgical intervention, which she was not healthy enough to endure. I wasn't getting through, and during the course of the next 5 hours had to repeat this explanation numerous times.
Mrs. R was out of her head with pain. She kept sitting up, lying down, putting the heating pad on, taking it off, thrashing in her bed, moaning, shouting at times and talking the entire time in fragmented sentences and words. During this time I increased her dose of pain medication twice. She was getting her medication through a subcutaneous line from a pump with a button she could press every 10 minutes for an extra dose. I pressed that button every 10 minutes for 2 hours. The average person would have been comatose from the amount of medication she received, but it was not helping.
It was decided after conferring with Mrs. R's very hospice savvy physician, that we should attempt to sedate her. Which we spent the next 3 hours doing. I stayed in the room with Mrs. R for 5 hours total that night, while giving her hefty doses of medication to make her go to sleep. It took a very long time, during which Mrs. R did what is known in hospice as a "life review".
She told me her story. Mrs. R's life was difficult and painful and she was struggling with feelings of guilt and shame as she walked through the door to the next world. She had been married 5 times, left her children with their father at the end of one of those marriages and thus had poor relationships with them, had been judged and scorned by most people she knew. She had had poor relationships with her own parents, as well. All in all, this led to Mrs. R lying alone in a hospice facility, with no friends or family to assist her in her dying process. You could hear the pain and shame in her voice as she spoke through her increasing drug induced haze.
Mrs. R finally went to sleep around 2:00 AM on Mothers' Day. And she died with no family near at 5:00 PM that evening.
I went home to bed around 3:oo AM, and slept until 8 when I had to give report by phone to the on-coming day shift. Then went back to sleep until 2 PM. When I got up I had a cup of coffee and got ready to go to the grocery store in preparation for the Mothers' Day celebration at our home.
As I was preparing to leave, J was on the phone with one of her daughters who was coming later, and the door bell rang. I went to the door to find J's son. He is 16 years old and generally about as self-centered as the average 16 year old boy. But in he walks, by himself, with a bouquet of flowers in his hand for his mom. It is the first time Joe has bought anyone flowers. And I am told, without prompting and with his own money. Happy Mothers' Day.
7 comments:
a good posting ans yes it is sad that a person does not have their famly and friends near when it is time to go home.
Thanks, Cheri and Mike. I think I will be posting more work stories. Things seem to be cropping up lately that beg to be written about. Have a great day!
What an amazing story and what important work you do. The hospice workers who cared for my grandfather at the end were incredible and my family is grateful to this day. I agree with Cheri - Mrs. R had you. It must have meant so much for her to be able to confess to you, so to speak. I would love to hear more of your work stories...fascinating. I hear so much about the start of life these days, and not enough about the end of it. Love the 16 year old figuring the deal out unprompted, too! Yay for teens.
I'm so glad you were there with her to hear her story and to make her more comfortable.
Even more than I cannot imagine how you do what you do--I cannot imagine what we would do without it.
Thank you for being there for this woman who needed to speak her peace.
Hey everyone! Thanks so much for your comments. Just keep in mind that I am not looking to be praised for what I do. I do what I do because I am called to it. Just as each of you is called to do what you do- whatever it is you are called to it. I only ask that when you read my stories that you just lift up a thought for the souls of those I meet.
Nevertheless, the job you do is vitally important and highly specialised. Most of us don't have the capacity to support a stranger physically and emotionally as they die. As a society, we undervalue our carers terribly.
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