A day in the Life

Sunday was my 6th work day of the week, there were patients who needed home visits and not enough time in the other five days. These are not fast visits like office visits, and not easy visits, where one writes a presciption and moves on, these are hospice visits.

One wonders sometimes what makes people get up every day to work in nursing homes and in hospice, usually these are people from the aides to the nurses and doctors and social workes who could make more money doing something else.

One drives from the main roads to main streets with businesses a dn gas stations, neighborhoods change but the experiences are the same. More houses are middle class than rich, many people living in single family homes, perhaps attached (or perhaps in some neighborhoods detached), often a playground or a basketball court at the end of the street.

In a row of houses or apartments one can usually tell which one you are looking for, often a sign is on the door gently warning people not to smoke as there is oxygen inside.

Inside really there is family. That seems a constant. People struggling. Not to get the benefit of a sale, or to get ahead, or to have fun but just trying to live today, or help a struggling loved one live today. The patient has a challenge but so does the family. It is not just that they are facing a loss, they have already had a loss, the person they love cannot do the normal day to day things they once could. And everyone is exhausted. It makes my working a 6th day in the week seem such a small thing.

What one really sees here is a lot of love. A spouse caring for someone she (or he) has loved and shared a partnership with for many years, "we have been married 49 years. Do you think..." a grandchild on leave from college taking care of a beloved grandmother. It is a habit I have gotten into to ask questions about the patient and family before getting straight to the point about the disease, "what work did he (ort she) do?" "How long have you been together?" "Do you have any children or grandchildren?" (and sometimes, yes great grandchildren).

I want to know what they believe will happen in their journey. No one knows, as a daughter said to me yesterday, "no one has come back to tell us." It is an unknown, but for some reason almost everyone has some sort of faith, faith seems almost hard wired into us - have I met an atheist, yes of course, and for them I listen to what they have to say. It is for me about them, their chance to talk and my job is to listen. If I cannot cure them at the least I can help them by listening, it demonstrates on some human level that we care.

The moments here is too large to think about it from my own perspective, this is not a time (however well intentioned) to convert someone to my belief or faith. It is always a two way street, I cannot tell you how often I find patients suffering reduced simply by the fact that someone comes in and cares to listen. And if you do listen with your heart you are graceed with someone's journey, and you feel the faith and love within the home.

Yesterday I was in a neighborhood driving by shops and remembered driving the same business district street 2 months ago, onto a main neighborhood street, and into a residential area. I met a man who was very ner death from cancer, he wanted to go "home." The home he referred to was very far away, it was where he grew up, I felt he really was "home," he was surrounded by an incredible amount of love, a wife, children, their spouses and grandchildren. I explained why he could not take the plane trip he wanted to make. He was angry, we talked a very long time. Time is one thing we can give in hospice. And in the end his family understood (after also calling a second doctor who had known him for years, known I was right but hadn't wanted to say so until asked directly).

After he passed away, his wife told one of my team members she got a call from a friend in their home town. "He died" she said (using the patients name). "How did you know?' his wife asked. "You may find this hard to believe but his spirit just came and told me. "

Traditional medicine can cure so many diseases these days, from when I was in medical school everything is amazing, and I work, I really do, to keep up. Science is a wonderful thing, it is a tool and it often helps us. But as my parter reminds me the greatest scientist of all, Albert Einstein realized science has limits.

We need to be careful not to give up on science because it cannot cure all. But as well, we need to be careful not to give up on human wisdom. Compassionate presence and Simple touch and Listening mean a lot. Reiki is simple and it is a method for learning how to keep your focus on these human values.

Sometimes people ask me why I am on a 6th day of the week driving through neighborhoods to go to homes and visit patients who are near the end-of-life. It seems to be something all we hospice workers do. Understand, there is nothing special or unique about what I do, Hospice Aides and Nurses and Social Workers and Spiritual Therapists, Music Therapists, Chaplains, and yes other doctors do this every day. (perhaps the doctors simply talk about it less - but - from the emails I am receiving it seems people think there are not so many doctyors who care and in truth - there are far more than you know!)

For those doing Hospice work it is simply more than a job. It is what we do because it is who we are.

To all those who believe that giving compassion to others sends ripples of peace through the world, thank you. The intention of this Blog is not about me, it is about you, and the lives you touch.