I met her today. The patient I've spoken to on the phone multiple times but put off meeting. I've left her chart for the other nurse time and time again. She's my age, you see. She's my age and she shouldn't have cancer.
I decided to meet her today. I put her in a room and she says "I'm feeling quite a bit better." And I smile a fake one. Because I know what she doesn't. I know that after we talk, the doctor will come in. And he will have the results of her CT scan. Although she's feeling better, she's not getting better. The doctor comes to me and requests palliative care papers. She won't live to see next Christmas. And she's alone today. Where is her husband? Today of all days.
The doctor comes back into the room, shoulders slumped. He tells me he thinks she took it better than he did. And I am encouraged to see this strong physician be torn up for his young patient. It means he cares.
I'd like to sit with her. I'd like to, and I'd hate to. But I don't sit in on doctor's conversations with patients. By the time I get back to the room, it's empty and waiting for the next victim.
I get home and just want quiet. I want a hot bath and some food. I don't want to be talked to and I don't want to have to talk. My mind has work to do. Before I can fall asleep tonight I'll ponder the very definitions of mortality. I'll feel guilty when my Baby kicks, knowing that some people never have a chance to start a family. I'll grapple with the unfairness of a child who had cancer, treatment, and remission only to be told as an adult that there is another cancer. And this time it's been caused by the treatment of the last. It's going to kill her. I"ll see her face in my mind - dark eyes under a baby blue toque.
And I'll realize that life isn't fair. That's just how it is. I'm not invincible. I could die today, tomorrow, in a year. It happens. My mind struggles to make some kind of sense of things, but it doesn't work. It's just how life is. Here. On Earth.
7 comments:
such absolute heartbreak... but never feel guilt for your babies kicks, love and embrace each moment enough for you and the others who can't...
Heart wrenching to say the least. This is why it takes SPECIAL people like you to work in these wards.
I am so thankful that this life is not all there is. I don't know how people without that hope get through many of their days -- I don't know how I would. Not that it makes life always easy, but I need that hope that I am not alone, and that there is more.
well expressed.
survivor's guilt. Its something we all experience in one way or another. There are portions of my brother dying young in palliative care that makes me want to silence the kicking of a baby as well.
Life is holy and odd.
I think this is going to be a lifelong struggle for me - even though I know everything will be better in the end. I think it's the process of dying that scares me - will I have the grace and strength to do it well? Will I be able to trust God to see me through whatever kind of end lies in store for me? I pray that I will but I just don't know and I spend way too much time fearing my death, instead of enjoying the days I have been given.
Love you, Carol
Well said Val....life is not fair, that's for sure....and cancer sucks, no two ways about that...that's why we must enjoy every good day we have, cause we just never know....tante L
You took time to meet her when it most mattered, didn't you? And then you let the pain of the situation enter your world. And grappled with it. Like Jacob wrestled with the angel. You've got me thinking.
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