Hospice folks tend to be compassionate and full of empathy. I was brimming over with such feelings as I left a patient today, after my weekly visit. Then, a friend starting complaining about some small, banal thing, just whining about the injustice of it all. And all that compassion and empathy flew out the window.
What I wanted to but didn't say was this:
So the man I saw today is having problems too. He has end-stage lung cancer, and lives in a small room in a dark house in Fairbanks, Alaska. A house that isn't his, but rather a 5-bed assisted living residence primarily for low-income seniors. The only person to visit him besides the hospice nurse is me, a volunteer who shows up Thursday mornings to push him in a wimpy wheelchair down to the convenience store to buy grossly-overpriced potato chips and cigarettes which will be taken away by the house manager upon our return, to be doled out later, at her discretion. And after stashing away the chips and smokes, the same house manager marches him back to his bedroom, reminding him to take off his pants before getting back into bed because dealing with that colostomy bag is a real pain otherwise.
This guy never ever complains--about the rickety wheelchair, the six-dollar potato chips, the feisty house manager, the awkwardness of getting into a gas station convenience store in a wheelchair pushed by some strange lady with a do-gooder complex, the family that doesn't visit, the cancer that's eating him away, the cashier who cards him at age 67 then scolds him for having an expired driver's license... Never complains about anything.
What I wanted to but didn't say was this:
So the man I saw today is having problems too. He has end-stage lung cancer, and lives in a small room in a dark house in Fairbanks, Alaska. A house that isn't his, but rather a 5-bed assisted living residence primarily for low-income seniors. The only person to visit him besides the hospice nurse is me, a volunteer who shows up Thursday mornings to push him in a wimpy wheelchair down to the convenience store to buy grossly-overpriced potato chips and cigarettes which will be taken away by the house manager upon our return, to be doled out later, at her discretion. And after stashing away the chips and smokes, the same house manager marches him back to his bedroom, reminding him to take off his pants before getting back into bed because dealing with that colostomy bag is a real pain otherwise.
This guy never ever complains--about the rickety wheelchair, the six-dollar potato chips, the feisty house manager, the awkwardness of getting into a gas station convenience store in a wheelchair pushed by some strange lady with a do-gooder complex, the family that doesn't visit, the cancer that's eating him away, the cashier who cards him at age 67 then scolds him for having an expired driver's license... Never complains about anything.
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