I've got a patient who's... how can I say this diplomatically... well, I'll just say I'm surprised she's not down at the regional mental health hospital. Anyhoo.. I get numerous requests for food. An obsession has grown from muffin, to muffins and yogurt, to (tonight) muffins, yogurt and Cheerios. I thought the Cheerios was kind of random. And when I say obsession, I mean I got 4 DSN's (Dietary, Special Needs) tonight. Four. For Cheerios. But I digress.
One of my cancer patients is severely palliative tonight. It makes me sad because there was a write-up in the local paper about him; a teacher who's school got together and raised a big donation for him for his treatments. I was delivering dinner and his friends or family, whoever they were told me not to bother delivering dinner to them because he'd taken a turn for the worse. No word of a lie, his like, entire support team showed up. About 15 people! I thought that was fantastic. A couple of kids went for a Timmie's run and came back with a LARGE BAG FULL. I'm not even kidding. So I guess they were planning to be there all night. I was sad about his health deteriorating quickly, but if the Lord's gonna take him, I pray He takes him quickly. Some were in tears, some laughing. We all have our ways of dealing with grief. I remember when we'd have a funeral back home, it was like a family reunion. Sure we'd be sad at first, but then we'd just be talking and laughing about things. You've always gotta find a way to laugh....
A couple other patients of mine are palliative, but they're slower going. I wish they weren't. Slow is the worst of all.
I don't know that I'd be comfortable staying in a hospital when I know there's so much death around me. Working in it doesn't bother me. Either way I know it's a part of life.
That's about it for tonight. I guess I'm just kinda sad that guy's dying.
No comments:
Post a Comment