I asked her, “How are you doing?”

She was dozing off in her chair and her partner answered, “She’s okay, just really tired.”

“You had a lot of pain last night, you still look sore at the moment.”

“No, she’s not in pain, sometimes her face just looks like she’s in pain. She’s pretty good at the moment the cancer lumps in her tummy were sore before, now they are okay.”

“You were on the pump before, did it help your pain?”

“Yeah, it did help my missus’s pain, but then we went to the traditional healer and he told us to stop the pump. Since then the pain hasn’t been as bad as it was. We stopped the pump last week.”

“You’ve needed seven extra doses since yesterday. I’m worried we aren’t controlling your pain enough.”

“No, you are doing all right. My missus will tell you if she needs more. She wants to call the shots.”

“How long you guys been together?”

“16 years.”

“Cool, how did you meet?”

“At church. She was a church girl, me I was a wannabe gangster. My missus straightened me out. Now I’ve become a workaholic, I work for my family, that’s the most important thing for us. To give our kids a good upbringing.”

“You guys make a good team.”

“It’s my missus, because of her I changed for the better, it took her five years but she sorted me out. She’s my boss.”

“Were you guys scared of hospice before you came in.”

“Yeah, we tried not to come in for the last couple of weeks. We wish we had come in sooner. She hates the hospital. She wasn’t sure about hospice.”

“Are you still scared of hospice.”

“Nah, it’s a good place, you guys are taking good care of her, and the whole family. We feel safe here, you guys listen to us. In the hospital they just kept giving us bad news, and then more bad news. And just when we thought we’d heard it all, even more. My missus just wants to make the most of each day, but we know how unwell she is. This place would be a good place to be at the end. She feels safe here, you guys treat us really well. We are still praying for a miracle.”

“You keep on praying. We just want to try to make her more comfortable. I think we could do better with her pain control, we may need to start the pump up again.”

“My missus wants to stay off it, but if things became too bad, if you thought she’d really need it, it would be okay to start it again.”

“Okay, we’ll try to keep her off it, try to do things her way as much as possible, but if things get really bad, we’re not going to let her suffer.”

“Yeah I just want her to do what she wants.”

“Do you have any questions?”

“Yeah. Do you think you could help us, ummm, we’ve been together a long time, and we had planned to get married last year in our backyard. But then she got really sick, and ended up in hospital, again and again. Do you think you could help us arrange for someone to come in to marry us? We just want it simple.”

“Yeah sure man, we can help, it’s been a while since we’ve had a wedding here. We’ll get the team going, we’re all keen to help. Just remember it’s your wedding, not ours.”

“Thanks, maybe if we get married then she’ll have a miracle.”