Office Hospice

Yesterday, the staff had an inservice on Hospice Philosophy: Myths vs. Realities. I didn't hear all of it.  Most of it I know by now. Namely, there are a lot of myths about hospice out there. As one of our aides said, "I hear all the time, 'I put my loved one on hospice, and they died! Hospice is terrible.' I want to say to them, 'Do you realize what you just said?'"

And it's true. I've heard hospice nurses called "Grim Reapers" and "Angels of Death". Like they come into a home and shoot lethal drugs into a person's blood stream. You go on hospice - you DIE. And that is, perhaps, the biggest myth of all.

I'm not saying it's not true. Or, in a crude sense, that it's hospice's purpose. For you do have to be terminally ill to be a hospice patient. And 90% of hospice patients die, roughly 60% of those within six months. (Those are my figures, not a statisticians.) But there are 10% who we discharge because they gain strength and are no longer hospice appropriate. And 30-40% who live on past six months, even up to four or more years on hospice. The purpose of hospice is comfort, trying to aid a person's disease ridden body into death with some dignity and care. Our nurses are not somehow angels of euthanasia. Anymore than nurses on a battlefield. They provide as much healing as they can and, when that fails, all the comfort that can be found.

I don't envy them their job, but some days I feel like a hospice nurse in another line of work. For in my office, if anything that plugs into a wall is not working I'm suppose to fix it. (Note the "suppose" for I failed with the fax machine this morning and had to call the professionals.) And typically that means I'm fighting with one of three machines: two computers probably four or five years old and our copier/printer/fax/scanner nearly five years of age. The last time I had to fix one of them, I told its user I'm about done with the thing. It's been on "hospice" for nearly a year, it has about all the "comfort meds" I can give it (a.k.a.: fixes from the internet), and once it starts turning yellow with blue around the fingernails, there's nothing more I can do but pronounce it when it breathes it's last breath. As for our all-in-one, the "lorazepam" I've been giving it (namely, shutting it off and unplugging everything for a few minutes before reviving it) is going to turn into "morphine" soon. Or a sledge hammer. (Okay, that's not very hospice...)

I don't think the nurses would exchange jobs with me, either. They would much prefer dealing with living souls. For one, the pay is much better. The rewards, too. After all, touching a soul is a special gift. My computer doesn't care if I ever touch it again or not. But, as always, someone has to keep everything organized. Just call me the "Angel of Records".