Mother Nature Has Already Made This Decision

Continuing the story from two weeks ago, the doctor also said, in words I wish I could recall exactly, that the husband might be thinking that he was having to make an immensely weighty decision: whether his wife would live or die. But in fact, the doctor said, God had already made this decision. The man’s wife was already gone.

At the end of the meeting, the doctors left the room—the meeting had taken an hour—and the patient’s husband left. I went around the room and shook each person’s hand, which I noted in my chart note, and the next day I woke up feeling like I might have a cold again! I took this as my punishment not so much for touching all those hands, but for the slight whiff of superiority in my charting that I shook everyone’s hand: I, the chaplain, made sure to connect personally with everyone in the room when the doctors did not. Maybe getting a cold because of that very action, and worse, maybe spreading a virus among the family right when their beloved person was dying (if this blog went in for emojis, a frowny face would go here) was my comeuppance and reminder not to judge my colleagues. Also a reminder to touch fewer hands. That contact is nice, but getting a cold or giving someone one is not.

This all came to me during the night, and so once again I sprang out of bed to try to correct an idiotic chart note before too many people saw it. Thank goodness I can log on from home.

The above illustrates one reason spiritual care is essential in palliative care—because, while palliative care isn’t hospice per se, palliative care patients are often approaching end of life, and end of life, as one mentor of mine has said, is a spiritual experience. When a person comes face to face with the death of her mother, or sister, or husband or wife, it automatically engages her profoundest beliefs, her deepest fears, and what is unshakably true for her.

I went to visit Emily for the first time since she graduated from hospice (the terminology used when a hospice patient’s life expectancy ceases to be six months or less). She now lives in quite a nice old folks’ home. Her room has a view of the lovely yard. Emily was lying on top of her bed wearing street clothes and looked quite glamorous, with blusher on her cheeks, newly penciled eyebrows and orange lipstick. She has fantastic cheekbones. She told me she’s letting her hair grow long enough to wear it in a French twist, and advised me to look into some lip balm with a bit of color, but not to experiment with lipstick: “You wouldn’t recognize yourself.”

She told me about her current challenges and grumbled about how she had been told by someone in her former hospice facility that she was “slowly declining.”

“Everybody’s slowly declining, FYI,” she says she told the person.