I have a patient who went on hospice care a few days ago. She appears fine. She is not fine. And she knows it. She is just waiting in a small hospital room watching reruns of CSI and whatever junk they have on TV these days, making herself happy in small ways with the food she can tolerate, complaining about things that she can control when she feels overwhelmed by the things she can’t.

Oh my God, how humbling. What would I do in that position?
What would you do?

Imagine this. You are sick but trying so very hard to beat it. You go to the hospital for a stomach ache. You are told that you have an intestinal blockage and it’s a tumor recurrence. Furthermore, there is nothing more they can do.”I’m sorry, there is nothing more I can do. I can make you comfortable, and keep your pain to a minimum…but there is nothing medically I can do to stop the progression of your disease. You most likely have about 2 weeks left.”

Oh my god. What if that were you? What if you only had two freaking weeks left and you are too sick to go home, too sick to do much, but well enough to be aware and to understand. Well enough to realize “Damn. The writer’s strike doesn’t matter to me because I am not going to be around to see the new episodes of The Office. Christmas ads mean nothing to me because I won’t be home for Christmas this year. I won’t see my cat or dog again. Ever.” It just goes on. No more summer corn on the cob. No more Valentine’s day candy. No more fireworks. You don’t need to worry about taking next year’s summer clothes out of storage and trying them on to see if they still fit.You can cancel your dental checkup and your next haircut. Any appointments you have…you aren’t keeping them.All of life’s special things, and all of life’s mundane things will continue on, but they will continue on without you. You won’t be there.

How would you feel? How would you handle it? You can talk, eat, drink, and have minimal pain. You are tired but not exhausted. You are alert, you are in your right mind, but within 2 weeks - FOURTEEN DAYS - You will become progressively more and more ill. Then you will die.Nothing we can do about it…. Would you cry? Complain? Retreat inward? Would you change anything? Would you mend relationships? Would you rebuild bridges knowing that your particular bridge is going into the great beyond? Would you confess your love for someone whom you’ve never told? Would you confess your hate for someone whom you’ve never told?

Put yourself there. It’s a scary place.

This entry was posted on Friday, May 30th, 2008 at 2:19 pm and is filed under Deanna, RN, For Student Nurses, Nursing Stories, Uncategorized.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.