Welcome to Gaia! :: View User's Journal | Gaia Journals

Once again I need to write for my sanity, I learned this morning that my newest hospice patient past away on Saturday. This patients situation has been very hard on me. This is the first hospice patient I have had that was younger than me. He was a 37 yr old veteran of the Persian War (the 1st war in Iraq). The Veterans Administration paid for the hospice so the diagnosis was related to his service. He died from Cancer of the brain. This in itself is tragic, let alone that he leaves an eleven yr old son and wife.The kicker here is that his wife is four months pregnant. She never told us nurses,but luckily she did confide in the counselor. I worry for her. The stress of pregnancy, loss of a spouse and being a single mother; her strength will be tested to the fullest. I'm not sure I could do it.
I'm not sure how much longer I will be able to continue working in hospice. I'm having lots of trouble not bringing them home with me. It's so hard to find the middle ground. Oh goddess.
Last year about this time, I had a patient that taught me more about myself than he or his wife would ever know. He was a 57 yr old, pulmonary fibrosis patient. He too had gotten his fatal disease from his job. He was a father of two grown girls and had three grandchildren. He called me his angel. (Those of you who know me, know I'm no angel.) He's condition essentially was his lungs and heart stopped working right and he filled up with fluid. Starting at his feet and moving up his body(knees, thighs, abdomen and finally his lungs and heart). His wife told me that he loved for me to come, not because I would give him the shots that would sometimes make him feel better, but because when I was there he told her he knew everything would be alright. But that is just it, there is nothing I can to to make any of it alright. The hospice counselor tries to re-enforce that when we help them through the dying process, it does "make it right" for them. I will never forget toward the end of his life, he wasn't sleeping much. He told me he was afraid to go to sleep because he might never wake up. I use to sit on the floor beside his chair, so he was looking down at me when he said that. I took his hand in mine and just sat there while he composed himself. After a few minutes with unshed tears in his eyes, he told me all of his fears: for his wife, his kids and grandkids, everything that kept him up at night. I listened in silence, tears rolling down my cheeks, just holding his hand, because frankly I knew nothing else to do. When he finished, a single tear rolled down his cheek. He reached over and got a Kleenex and handed it to me, saying , "Little angel, thank you." I asked him why he was thanking me, because I had done nothing. "No, S, you have just lifted a weight from my shoulders by being here to listen to me. I needed to tell someone all my worries, and I couldn't tell my wife because she has so much on her already and the girls have there own problems." He did ask me to do one thing for him that day that I was able to do. He asked me to make sure he didn't pass away at the house because he knew his wife could not live there if he did. Three weeks later, I sent him to the hospital. He passed away the next night. His wife told me later, that right before he died, after he said goodbye to his girls and her, he told her to tell me: "Thank you, little angel, for all you did and for letting me sleep with a peaceful mind," that I would know what he meant. He took a few more breathes and was gone.
It's weird when those things will pop up in your mind. Sorry to be so melancholy today, but I hope the circumstance will allow you to forgive me this.