My weekend was bitter-sweet. The husband of a very dear friend passed away Saturday morning. My heart aches for her and the grief she is and will be dealing with a long time.
I had a house guest this weekend who is also a dear friend of mine. Her name is Ellen and she is a private person so I will not give her full name. We met when I heard her speak the same year I was diagnosed with diabetes. That was 2003.
I helped her with a Diabetes support group she organized here and then wrote articles from interviews of local people who had diabetes. I heard their stories which opened my eyes and I hope the eyes of those who read about them. At that time Ellen said we had a large number of people in this county who had the disease, but had not been diagnosed. She went on to get the hospital and the health department involved with getting people diagnosed and classes set up to teach them what they need to know to take care of themselves as well as how to talk to their doctors.
I admired her work and it was not that easy. It is always hard to create change, especially here in the mountains.
She now works as a Hospice Doctor and I can tell she takes great comfort in being able to keep patients out of pain and letting them die peacefully. Hospice care can be the only place a sick person gets the pain relief they need. Hospitals will not usually give that kind of care. I write from experience. My husband suffered horribly while at Emory Hospital, but once he was in Hospice Care, I insisted he have whatever was needed to relieve his pain.
Ellen tells me the families are the biggest challenge she faces with each patient.
"My son, Mark is coming in from California tomorrow. We want my husband awake so he can talk to Mark."
Why would you want your husband to suffer in excruciating pain so he can speak a few words to Mark? The concern seems to be more for the son who is coming than for the patient who is dying.
I remember the nice young doctor at the Hospice Center where Barry had been admitted and was finally free of pain saying, "We'll cut back on the morphine today."
"Why on earth would you do that?" I asked.
"So you and he can talk to each other."
I told him we had talked to each other for 45 years and we had nothing left to say that was worth making him suffer any more pain.
I hope if I am ever in such a state that no one will cut back on the medicine just so I can mumble a few words or they hope I will recognize someone. The patient, at this point, has no interest in others. He is dealing with pain, his own body and mind failing, and has to force himself to meet others' expectations.
Families that make a loved one suffer in such a way are selfish and have no idea what it is to suffer immense pain.
Ellen, who was a doctor when I met her, said she chose to become a hospice doctor after seeing and hearing about the horror and pain Barry went through when we could find no help for his suffering with cancer. I admire her so much. She told me her major concern for the hospice patient is that he have no pain. She tells her nurses that first they make sure the patient is pain free.
I hope all hospice doctors and nurses today make that their first priority. If we have to die, at least let us go peacefully.
Showing posts with label Hospice. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hospice. Show all posts
Sunday, October 15, 2017
Sunday, July 21, 2013
July 21
Four years ago, early morning, I awoke, exhausted, in a small sparse room in a hospice center where I had stayed round the clock for several days, realizing this would be the last day I'd have with my beloved husband who was transitioning to a better place, leaving me to make it on my own. I remember sitting in a rocking chair on the front porch afterward waiting for others in my family to come and wrap me in their love, take me home with them, and let me sleep.
Four years and still this day brings back such sorrow and so many memories.
A BALMY DAY IN JANUARY
like none I've seen in years. In the park,
sunshine heals like days I waited urgently
to be free of walls, to tear across the pasture
on my mare, rushing toward fulfilling childhood dreams.
I stroll with Rocky this winter day, warm enough
to over-heat his black fur, his weakened bones.
His unconditional love fills a tiny part of that left empty now.
Women in tennis attire stride toward the courts,
new bags on their shoulders, swinging rackets,
tossing hair, wearing trendy shoes. Love – one.
Love-two, their happy voices sing on brisk air.
Tennis was once our game, long ago,
when a simple quarrel over a match seemed
the end of our world; a gentle world we did not
properly nurture, because we didn’t know
what we didn’t know.
--- Glenda C. Beall
Published by Wild Goose Poetry Review, Spring, 2013
like none I've seen in years. In the park,
sunshine heals like days I waited urgently
to be free of walls, to tear across the pasture
on my mare, rushing toward fulfilling childhood dreams.
I stroll with Rocky this winter day, warm enough
to over-heat his black fur, his weakened bones.
His unconditional love fills a tiny part of that left empty now.
Women in tennis attire stride toward the courts,
new bags on their shoulders, swinging rackets,
tossing hair, wearing trendy shoes. Love – one.
Love-two, their happy voices sing on brisk air.
Tennis was once our game, long ago,
when a simple quarrel over a match seemed
the end of our world; a gentle world we did not
properly nurture, because we didn’t know
what we didn’t know.
--- Glenda C. Beall
Published by Wild Goose Poetry Review, Spring, 2013
 |
| Glenda on family tennis court |
Saturday, December 8, 2012
On Death and Dying Alone
When we lose our loved ones, especially after we begin losing our siblings, our mortality rears up and roars at us. How long do we have left? How will we depart and how long will it take?
Reading the book given by Hospice on what to expect from your loved one as they begin to transition from this world to the next, is almost ghoulish, but I suppose it is something we need to know as we sit with our dying person. They tell us the rasping sounds emanating from the person we love is “normal.”
Nurses at Hospice know when to call in the family as the last stages of life leave the patient They know when we need to be there to say our last good-byes. They can’t help us with this chore, and they can’t tell us how to do it to make the passing easier for our dear one. But they know all the symptoms of life leaving the body.
My question is how do the writers of this book know?
As I spoke in my sister’s ear and told her I love her and urged her to sleep well, her breathing became faster and her eyes opened, unfocused, for a moment. I was sorry I spoke to her and wakened her from her journey. Perhaps it is best to leave the traveling to the dying because no matter how many people gather around, we still die alone.
Even the little book says we withdraw from this world, gradually losing interest in reading, TV, news of the world around us, children and grandchildren, and we become totally self-absorbed. I imagine I would not be interested in the noisy television that seems to be a necessity in every hospital room. My sister said to turn it off.
When read to, she already seemed to be away, just smiling at the reader. My sister June had the nicest smile and the kindest heart. She would not be rude and say, “Stop reading. I don’t want to hear it.” Her smile became a sad expression in those last days as the hopelessness became more apparent.
After watching death claim my loved ones, I understand that the process of dying is strenuous, is all consuming, and requires total self-absorption.
Those of us left behind and grieving are just in the way.
I think my sister would have liked to say to me, “Leave me alone. Go home now. I’m busy dying.”
And she completed that task only fifteen minutes later.
 |
| Three sisters, Glenda, Gay and June in chair |
Sunday, December 18, 2011
Age is a learning experience that can’t be gained in the best college or university. With age comes wisdom and mature thinking. It is not our number of birthdays that make us wise however, it is the hurts, the losses, the tragedies we face and overcome. It is also the celebrations large and small of successes and how we accept them.
With every loss of someone we love, our lives change in some way. For months I’ve had my brother and his wife on my mind. He died suddenly on a Sunday morning in August and she passed away three months later.
How can my life ever be the same? We die a little bit with the death of our loved ones. But we learn something each time we face the pain. Hopefully we learn something that helps us with the time we have left. In talking with my brother’s daughter, I felt the raw edges of her grief. For months that family watched their mother fighting for her life, tortured with surgeries, and finally she passed away quietly under Hospice care.
The cremains of this couple, married back in the fifties, are commingled in one urn and buried in an ancient cemetery near the grave of our great-grandfather under massive oaks gray with moss.
Christmas is coming, but how do the daughters and grandchildren celebrate the holidays with joy when the home their tradition-loving mother filled with light, with delicious family meals, exquisite Christmas trees, and gifts lovingly bought or made, is no longer there. It hits them. You can't go home now because home with Mom and Dad is gone. That unconditional love from their parents is only a memory now.
Wisdom comes with this realization. Once we face the pain ourselves, we don’t judge how others handle grief. Once humbled we realize we have no right to judge. We have had our legs cut out from under us and we barely survived, we feel fortunate to still be here, so how could we judge anyone who is dealing with that pain. Empathy grows in places it never thrived before.
Once I was ignorant about this kind of loss. But I learned as I experienced losses of loved ones. Everyone deals with loss, with mourning, in their own way. No one can tell us how we should behave. No rules apply. No limits apply. We don’t get over it. We go on with our lives, and if we are lucky, we finally have days when we no longer feel that stabbing pain when we think of our loved one. We finally are able to talk about our loss without crying, but that doesn’t mean the hurt is gone. We just bury it deeper inside so we can continue to live in the real world.
Finding a way to reach out and help others seems to work best for healing. Starting a ministry for helping children, using our talents to teach others what we know, supporting Hospice or doing something for others in the name of our loved one gives us peace and comfort. Most of us have a need to keep the name of our loved one alive. “As long as we are remembered by even one person we continue to live.”
As my nieces and their children face life without the guiding light of their strong father and mother, my hope is for healing, and my prayers for peace in their lives are foremost on my mind.
With every loss of someone we love, our lives change in some way. For months I’ve had my brother and his wife on my mind. He died suddenly on a Sunday morning in August and she passed away three months later.
How can my life ever be the same? We die a little bit with the death of our loved ones. But we learn something each time we face the pain. Hopefully we learn something that helps us with the time we have left. In talking with my brother’s daughter, I felt the raw edges of her grief. For months that family watched their mother fighting for her life, tortured with surgeries, and finally she passed away quietly under Hospice care.
The cremains of this couple, married back in the fifties, are commingled in one urn and buried in an ancient cemetery near the grave of our great-grandfather under massive oaks gray with moss.
Christmas is coming, but how do the daughters and grandchildren celebrate the holidays with joy when the home their tradition-loving mother filled with light, with delicious family meals, exquisite Christmas trees, and gifts lovingly bought or made, is no longer there. It hits them. You can't go home now because home with Mom and Dad is gone. That unconditional love from their parents is only a memory now.
Wisdom comes with this realization. Once we face the pain ourselves, we don’t judge how others handle grief. Once humbled we realize we have no right to judge. We have had our legs cut out from under us and we barely survived, we feel fortunate to still be here, so how could we judge anyone who is dealing with that pain. Empathy grows in places it never thrived before.
Once I was ignorant about this kind of loss. But I learned as I experienced losses of loved ones. Everyone deals with loss, with mourning, in their own way. No one can tell us how we should behave. No rules apply. No limits apply. We don’t get over it. We go on with our lives, and if we are lucky, we finally have days when we no longer feel that stabbing pain when we think of our loved one. We finally are able to talk about our loss without crying, but that doesn’t mean the hurt is gone. We just bury it deeper inside so we can continue to live in the real world.
Finding a way to reach out and help others seems to work best for healing. Starting a ministry for helping children, using our talents to teach others what we know, supporting Hospice or doing something for others in the name of our loved one gives us peace and comfort. Most of us have a need to keep the name of our loved one alive. “As long as we are remembered by even one person we continue to live.”
As my nieces and their children face life without the guiding light of their strong father and mother, my hope is for healing, and my prayers for peace in their lives are foremost on my mind.
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Going on with Life after the First Year
July 21, 2009 is a day I'll never forget though I can barely remember most of it. I awoke from sleeping on the fold-out bed in my husband's room at Embracing Hospice in Cumming, GA.
I had made the hardest decision of my life. A kind young doctor had told me he could do nothing else for Barry, but we could go back to Emory for more chemo. My husband's heart was failing from the one chemo treatment he'd received at Emory before being dismissed. Weakness left him barely able to speak. The unrelenting pain in his left leg where the lymphoma had returned was like a raging lion tearing the life out of an antelope, bite after bite.
"No," I told the doctor. "If he can't get well, I don't want him to suffer anymore. The chemo is a poison that slowly kills his body while fighting the cancer."
No one would tell me, yes, he is dying anyway. They only said we can still try more chemo.
I had been told that at Hospice he would receive the pain relief he could not seem to get anywhere else.
We had come there on Saturday afternoon, late. On Monday morning I demanded the doctor give Barry the IV drip that would let him sleep until his body gave out. I was assured that he would not be in pain anymore.
I don't know where the strength came from to sit by him every hour watching him suffer and then watch him die. That is the part I will always remember. Those last minutes.
I have now lived through the last of the firsts. There was my first birthday without him, Thanksgiving without him, Christmas, and Easter, his birthday. Then Memorial Day came. That was the anniversary of our move to the mountains, to this place we love so much. June 14 was our wedding anniversary. Fourth of July was the anniversary of our first date. And July 21, the anniversary of our goodbye.
I'm told by those who have endured this journey that the first year with all the "first anniversaries" is the hardest and that one day these will just be like any day in my life.
I accomplished a great deal this year. I decided I was going to live and live the best I can from now on. My health is my priority, my writing and work are next. But I've also made a new commitment to enjoy life, to laugh, to dance, to travel, to make play dates with my friends. I'll invite them to lunch with me ( at a restaurant of course. I don't want to cook) I am looking into interesting places to go that aren't too expensive. I want to surround myself with people I enjoy and people I love.
This week I babysat a puppy. She made me laugh. I remembered how little things used to make me happy and make me smile.
Like George in my story The Trillium, found in Echoes Across the Blue Ridge, I will look for happiness in little things. Like Tipper who writes on TheBlind Pig and the Acorn, I want to explore more, learn more and relish my experiences.
All those firsts are behind me now. I am a different person from the one I was a year ago. Old friends will have to understand if I don't enjoy the things I once did. I am moving on in my new life as the half of a couple, but the living half who has to learn what she can do and what she wants now, and who is learning, every day, to be grateful.
I had made the hardest decision of my life. A kind young doctor had told me he could do nothing else for Barry, but we could go back to Emory for more chemo. My husband's heart was failing from the one chemo treatment he'd received at Emory before being dismissed. Weakness left him barely able to speak. The unrelenting pain in his left leg where the lymphoma had returned was like a raging lion tearing the life out of an antelope, bite after bite.
"No," I told the doctor. "If he can't get well, I don't want him to suffer anymore. The chemo is a poison that slowly kills his body while fighting the cancer."
No one would tell me, yes, he is dying anyway. They only said we can still try more chemo.
I had been told that at Hospice he would receive the pain relief he could not seem to get anywhere else.
We had come there on Saturday afternoon, late. On Monday morning I demanded the doctor give Barry the IV drip that would let him sleep until his body gave out. I was assured that he would not be in pain anymore.
I don't know where the strength came from to sit by him every hour watching him suffer and then watch him die. That is the part I will always remember. Those last minutes.
I have now lived through the last of the firsts. There was my first birthday without him, Thanksgiving without him, Christmas, and Easter, his birthday. Then Memorial Day came. That was the anniversary of our move to the mountains, to this place we love so much. June 14 was our wedding anniversary. Fourth of July was the anniversary of our first date. And July 21, the anniversary of our goodbye.
I'm told by those who have endured this journey that the first year with all the "first anniversaries" is the hardest and that one day these will just be like any day in my life.
I accomplished a great deal this year. I decided I was going to live and live the best I can from now on. My health is my priority, my writing and work are next. But I've also made a new commitment to enjoy life, to laugh, to dance, to travel, to make play dates with my friends. I'll invite them to lunch with me ( at a restaurant of course. I don't want to cook) I am looking into interesting places to go that aren't too expensive. I want to surround myself with people I enjoy and people I love.
This week I babysat a puppy. She made me laugh. I remembered how little things used to make me happy and make me smile.
Like George in my story The Trillium, found in Echoes Across the Blue Ridge, I will look for happiness in little things. Like Tipper who writes on TheBlind Pig and the Acorn, I want to explore more, learn more and relish my experiences.
All those firsts are behind me now. I am a different person from the one I was a year ago. Old friends will have to understand if I don't enjoy the things I once did. I am moving on in my new life as the half of a couple, but the living half who has to learn what she can do and what she wants now, and who is learning, every day, to be grateful.
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
From a Bereavement Coordinator's letter to me
Grief is not
a problem to be cured.
It is simply a statement
that you
have loved someone.
a problem to be cured.
It is simply a statement
that you
have loved someone.
Saturday, July 25, 2009
Melissa, the Hospice Nurse
Melissa is a nurse with compassion and a great heart. She cared for both Barry and me for several days. I watched her tenderly wipe his brow with a damp wash cloth and carefully re-position his head on the pillow. She sometimes sat beside me and hugged me as I wept.
How does she do this day after day, I wonder. Her business is smoothing the journey of the dying as they travel on to another realm.But she also tends the living who stay behind and grieve.
I could never do what she does, but I am oh, so thankful that she can do it.
Melissa made up for my frustration in dealing with a medical world that no one could understand. I told her she was, indeed, an angel of mercy.
She told me that I had inspired her. How could that be? I saw nothing in what I was going through that could inspire anyone.
"You have inspired me, " she said, " because I see the love you have for your husband, and although I've seen many people pass through this place, I've never been touched by anyone as I have you. I have been married twenty years, and I hope I can love my husband as much as you love Barry."
We never know what our actions say to others even in the most difficult times. I saw myself desperately trying to help my husband transcend this world in peace, to be relieved of suffering, and to know he could leave me with no fear for my well-being. I agonized over my decisions and begged doctors to help me make them. I'd never have thought of myself as inspiring.
How does she do this day after day, I wonder. Her business is smoothing the journey of the dying as they travel on to another realm.But she also tends the living who stay behind and grieve.
I could never do what she does, but I am oh, so thankful that she can do it.
Melissa made up for my frustration in dealing with a medical world that no one could understand. I told her she was, indeed, an angel of mercy.
She told me that I had inspired her. How could that be? I saw nothing in what I was going through that could inspire anyone.
"You have inspired me, " she said, " because I see the love you have for your husband, and although I've seen many people pass through this place, I've never been touched by anyone as I have you. I have been married twenty years, and I hope I can love my husband as much as you love Barry."
We never know what our actions say to others even in the most difficult times. I saw myself desperately trying to help my husband transcend this world in peace, to be relieved of suffering, and to know he could leave me with no fear for my well-being. I agonized over my decisions and begged doctors to help me make them. I'd never have thought of myself as inspiring.
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