Since arrival she had been very anxious and spent most of the first few days alone in her room. “I don’t want to interact with anyone, please leave me alone, keep the curtains closed and the lights off” – like a hermit crab withdrawing deeper into her shell.
Worsening pain had brought her to us, severe physical pain, the result of increasingly bad news about the toll her disease was taking on her body over the past six months, and also likely emotional pain as evidenced by worsening anxiety. Despite the team’s best attempts at connecting she remained aloof and guarded, sleep being a source of solace.
They had spoken their marriage vows decades ago, but things didn’t work out as planned. They split up many years ago – for whatever reason? I never found out, it was just too inappropriate to ever ask.
The ex-wife became progressively more unwell over the past months. The ex-husband arrived from many thousands of miles to help out, leaving his second family behind.
Things rapidly worsened, and she started to lose her functional abilities. She knew that the end of her life was coming and she made preparations for her own funeral. Her anxiety worsened as her body and it’s senses started to fail her. She became increasingly confused and uncomfortable. The family tried their very best to keep her at home, but they became physically and emotionally exhausted, and could not cope as her condition worsened.
She was admitted to our in-patient unit and knew that she would die there. Now that death was soon approaching, it made her fear grow to intolerable levels. He promised his ex-wife that he would be at her side until the very end, his calm and steady voice brought peace to her. The days passed and her condition deteriorated, sleep became a brief and unfamiliar acquaintance to him. He was physically drained, emotionally wrought but yet he was dedicated to maintaining his vigil.
I’m not sure what he said to her that last night, but I know that he emptied out his heart. He told me with tears in his eyes that after he had said what he needed to her, that she had taken her last breath, and then her life was over.
I’m not sure what had happened to them in the past, to break them apart, but when she needed him the most, he had been there.
A few years ago I had formulated a plan to reunite a patient, who had been in inpatient care for a number of months, with his horse who I had been informed, he missed dearly. Something had been lost during the clinical handover – the patient had actually sold his horse some months prior. Instead I arranged for him to receive the Trackside horse-racing channel, and assured him that he could do phone-betting. I filed the plan away in the recesses of my brain, and looked forward to bringing it out again if the opportunity ever arose again to make use of it.
Many years later it will still stand clearly in your memory, your wedding day, the day that started a new life together for you two. The ceremony in which you fully committed to each other and became; Mr and Mrs _____, or Mr and Mr ______, or Mrs and Mrs______. For better or for worse, until death do us part. What’s so different about a Hospice Wedding? Continue reading →
Last Saturday morning I had an early start, making my way to the airport in order to fly down to Wellington for the annual ANZSPM (Australia New Zealand Society of Palliative Medicine) Aotearoa (Kiwi branch) conference. A great chance for NZ Palliative Care doctors to catch up with each other, share hugs and teach each other new things. Continue reading →
I managed to track down the burial location of the baby of one of our patients who had tragically lost their first baby, by stillbirth, over 20 years ago. Due to various reasons the grieving couple never found out where their baby was buried within a large local cemetery.
I had no idea how to start the search, so I asked around. Thanks to everyone who suggested that I contact the local council. A quick search of their website found a section where you can search for burial locations online yourself. This did not yield any results, but led me to another section of the website that allowed me to send a query email.
A few days later a real human answered, and suggested that I emailed someone else. Two days later I was sent a reply with a picture of a map of the cemetery with a highlighted area within which their baby had been buried. One of our counsellors kindly delivered the information package to the couple, time was of the essence as our patient was deteriorating rapidly.
Two days later our patient died. The bereaved spouse was able to tell us later that our patient could now be together with their long-lost baby.
I would love to hear your stories, y’all have a good weekend.
The other day I made a patient laugh and smile, two of my favourite things to do as a doctor.
Two men from completely different walks of life, in the space of 15 minutes, made a human connection through humour, blokey-ness and general conversation.
I wished him a good night and said that we would talk again tomorrow about transferring him back to his original hometown.
Neither of us knew that mere hours later one of us would not be alive any more.
Please share with the Palliverse community what the best thing you did all week was.
A community of practice is a group of like-minded people who come together to work on a shared goal or cause. One of the core ideas behind Palliverse is that we want to form a virtual community of practice and translate it into a real world community of practice. This is in order to foster community spirit to make a difference in the world, in the form of global access to palliative care.
Palliverse is also an ongoing tribute to the power of words. This was illustrated last November with the realisation of project #getjakbak, where-by last-minute crowd-funding on the fly enabled a dying man to go home to his family.
Project #ffsflame is a bit different in that it is a personal project of mine and is aimed at keeping one of my favourite people in the world from requiring palliative care services.
Who is FF?
FF is a member of my inner circle and has become very unwell with Liquid Malignant badness (blood cancer.) FF is one of the hardest working people on the planet, she is married and is the mother of two lovely kids, both under six years old.
The following word pairs are listed in an effort to describe her:
family first
fabulous friend
feisty female
fantastic free-spirit
focused foxy-lady
fulla fun
faithful facilitator
friendly face
fail-safe flexibility
forever fair-natured
farseeing freshness
fluent finesse
freckled flower
FF is not used to asking for, or receiving help as she is usually the one helping everyone else, but now is a time where she needs all the help she can get.
FF is scheduled to start her first cycle of chemotherapy early next week, and has to leave her home and young family to do so.
FF needs your moral(e) support.
To take part in a demonstration of the power of words and human connection, please leave a message in the comments section, or tweet to #ffsflame to keep her fire burning.
Please spread this request to all of your social media networks.
palliverse.com 