A Puzzler

I get paid to do this?

I visit a certain elderly woman on our hospice services weekly. She is frail elderly and lives alone. Her mind is never at rest. She worries about lots of things, and worries about worrying.

A visitor brought her a puzzle and challenged her to finish it in a week, "and I don't want to hear that you had help!" She said the visitor thinks it will keep her mind off of her illness and prevent her from becoming depressed.

She balked. I encouraged. She made excuses. I said I'd just get the 500 puzzle pieces out of the box for her and laid on the table face up. She consented to that.

And she wobbled over and stood a few seconds watching me. And then she sat and watched me for a few minutes. Soon we were both picking at pieces trying to find matches with her muttering all the while, "I never had the patience for these things" and "this is making my hands cramp up."

It led into a wonderful conversation about her life and the hard worker she has always been and how she can't remember if she ever did anything to relax. Her mind never rests.

But it did for those 15 or so minutes while we chatted and worked on the puzzle.

As did mine.

It reminded me of a conversation I had earlier in the day with another woman about Psalm 46:10.....Be still and know that I am God.

Many years ago another woman I met through hospice made a cross stitch for me that still sits on my windowsill in my living room. It is a meditation of Psalm 46:10. Here is what it says:

Be still and know that I am God.

Be still and know that I am.

Be still and know.

Be still.

Be.

I was "being" with the woman and her puzzle today. And it felt right. There was no where else that I should have been at that moment.

To be or not to be. Is that the question? No. It is the choice.

Hypocrisy at the Bedside

I was visiting with my favorite woman on our hospice services right now. She's always been independent and spunky, even into her later years. Now she needs assistance getting out of her hospital bed and is dependent upon others for even basic needs.

She is struggling with her dependence. She has been the one through the years to care for others. Now she is the recipient. Her family wishes she didn't struggle so much with this. So we had a discussion about how she could see their care as an expression of their love for her now, and that if the shoe was on the other foot, she knows how much she would love to help them, and to let them help her as her body gives out on her.......yada, yada, yada.

I'm a hypocrite. I struggle myself with accepting care and help from others. I imagine I would feel the same way as she if I were laying in the bed in her place.

I think if we were two kids talking, she would say to me, "yeah? Well your words bounce off of me right back to you!"

So if I'm going to encourage her in this, I guess I have to work on it myself.

I Finally Have Some Thoughts That You May Find Interesting....I Think.

If you're reading this, I'm amazed! I've been a delinquent blogger of late, mainly because I haven't felt inspired, or I've been busy, or everything I have to say I think is only interesting to me.

My job as a hospice worker always manages to teach me something. Everyday I work. I see so many examples of self-sacrificing love that I feel put to shame. It's like someone takes my face between their hands and wrenches it from my inward stare to force me to look around me. And consider.

Like what would it be like to be fairly sure your husband will be gone in less than 6 months and to be planning a trip across the country because he wants to go.....setting aside all of your fears of being away from other family members or of what might happen on the road that you won't have the tools to deal with. Yet you go forward with your plans anyway because the person you love more than anyone else in the world wants to go with you one last time before you die.

And what kind of intimate memories you are creating with the aunt you are caring for who is widowed and has no children while your sister is 1500 miles away caring for your own mother who has significant disabilities. And your aunt has always been fiesty and independent and now you share much more than your humor and affection. She needs you to help with her very basic personal cares. Your relationship has changed forever.

And what kinds of things family members do to each other that cause so much hurt and pain that 20 years later it is impacting the family's ability to provide calm, organized cares. I cannot imagine.

Everyday I am reminded of my mortality. And most days I choose to live in denial of it.

But I live in enough of the reality that I feel guilt when I don't do and say things I should do or say if this were my last day on earth.

Like thank-you. I love you. I forgive you.

Touching Someone Touching the Next World

Ever have a conversation with someone with one foot in this world, and one in the next?? (And I don't mean a bleary-eyed, non-morning person, either!)

I had one today. It always intrigues me.

Today upon arrival at a home, the family was telling me how their mom (a hospice patient) had been hallucinating all day. When I inquired about details, they said she'd been talking to family members who had died years ago. She would reach into the air and grab at nothing (seemingly).

She kept asking, "Who did that?" Her kids could not get out of her what "that" was. And the patient, we'll call her M, became agitated when they would not tell her and kept trying to get her to explain herself. M just kept repeating her question. I said, "M, we don't know who did that." And she settled back into her pillow, staring at me but not at me, and said, "God did that." And a slight smile came over her face. And then she said, "do you hear that?" And I replied, "What do you hear?" M said, "it's beautiful." And by then her daughter had caught on and was supporting her in conversation instead of trying to get M to explain herself.

I know she was hearing things and seeing things that I could not hear and see. And to kneel below her, holding her hand looking up into her face and glazed eyes gave me the goosebumps. To be that close to someone so close to the next world awes and fascinates me.

One cannot be a hospice worker and believe this life is all there is.

A bit later in the visit at a more lucid moment, I said to M....."remember the past few weeks how you've been telling me that you are ready to go home to Jesus and that you don't know why He has not taken you yet?....well I think you're gonna get to meet him soon. And to tell you the truth, M, I'm a little envious."

Her little smile was priceless.

I Have a Friend

....who really only seems to pursue me when something is needed from me: a listening ear, a favor, an idea, an affirmation, etc. I love to help but sometimes wonder.....am I likable just for who I am? Does this person care to know about my day, or why I may be sad, or what the desires of my heart are? Should I even desire that they know me....or is this selfish?

I find that so many people today are so absorbed with themselves or their crazy schedules that they don't take the time to stop, look around, and connect. Or if there is the pretension of care, it is in order to receive something in return. They miss out on a lot of the richness around them.

This is one of the reasons I love my job with hospice. I occasionally (more often than in the "well" world) get to meet people on their deathbed where all pretension is stripped away. Their words mean what they say. There are no underlying or hidden meanings, no reading between the lines. No crap.

Do I do this, Lord? Help me to pursue others because they have a soul, and not for what they can do for me.

My day today

Just a usual work day.....
Up at 4am. Quiet/prayer time. Computer time. Laundry. Checkbook/bills. Getting work stuff together, boys together, stuff for after work together.

Drop boys at school, stop by one credit union and then the other, drop registration for son's flag football at park and rec dept.

Visit #1: A weekly check-in on a family caring for their mom at home the last two years--making sure they have the help and respite they need and that they are all getting along

Visit #2: Meeting a new woman to our services who is dealing with some anxiety right now, possibly related to unmanaged pain

Visit #3: An urgent visit made at the request of a call from a nurse coworker...."Help!". A couple not really safe any longer in their home, no caregiver available, and adamantly stating that no matter what they are not leaving their home. Sigh

Visit #4: Meeting a new man to our services. Actually, he was sleeping, so the visit was spent meeting his daughter/primary caregiver and giving her suggestions about how she can approach the idea of her need for respite with her dad

Visit #5: A bi-weekly check-in on a woman who is cared for by her son. She reminisced about her family of origin. I love her soft, brown eyes

Visit #6: Meeting a new woman to our services and talking with three of her children. "Are we doing everything right?" "Do you think she's comfortable?" "Do you have any other suggestions?" Some underlying current of tension. I'm sure I'll find out the source soon enough. I usually do......

First night of the year for teaching 2nd grade religious ed. It looks to be a great class. And the bonus: my son is enrolled!

Home to tuck boys into bed, hear their excitement about religious ed, and finish my work charting.

Didn't the house elf get my chore list of things to take care of today while I was gone? Oh well. I guess that's why I have tomorrow.

A Glimpse at Why I Love My Job

A room in the back corner of a basement of a physicians clinic. Computers on tables with lots of wires lining the four walls of the room. Four long banquet tables pushed together 2x2 to make a rectangle in the center of the room. Sixteen clinicians sitting around the table, each with a laptop in front of them. Wires connecting the laptops to the wall--to electricity and to networks. Papers scattered on the table. The click click click of keyboard keys, various musical rings of cellphones, and an occasional overhead page. The confused delay in the conversation over the speakerphone connecting clinicians 40 miles away.

The report of how recently bereaved families are doing. The silent recitation of recent deaths. Discussion case-by-case of the 33 hospice patients the team I'm part of--Team 3--is responsible for. Concern about cares, or lack thereof, being delivered by caregivers. Problem-solving about something new ("anyone have any ideas?") that may take care of nausea not touched by any other med thus far. Other options for treating anxiety since the patient is allergic to the usual first line of treatment. Sharing of information learned at a recent conference about a new way to address a dry tickle cough in chronic COPD patients. Concern about a family's coping and the constant tears they shed. Rejoicing over a recent reconciliation of a patient to an estranged family member. Brainstorming about a patient and family not wanting to engage in any conversation about disease process or decline, despite the decline occurring. Pointing out a patient's estrangement from their faith background to keep an ear out lest there is increased anxiety/fear nearer to death. This person needs a volunteer to assist with attending a last-time fishing trip. That person needs a CNA to assist with her laundry.

We have to record this, sign that, document, document, document. But we play "the game" because it allows us to be present with families as their loved ones die. To make them more comfortable. So they don't feel alone. To answer their questions and teach them what to do.

To be present in the sacredness of the grieving of others heretofore strangers, but strangers no more.

Rejection of a money tree

I had a conversation with a terminally ill man and his family today. Before I left the house, I asked if there was anything else they needed. The man responded with a twinkle in his eye, "a body overhaul." I smiled and said that usually people asked me for a money tree. His response: "Well, that's stupid. Why would anyone want more money?"

My first thought was that this man knew his priorities. And my second thought was that it is easy for us in America to decline a money tree.

He still has his priorities right. He is dying. What use does he have now for more money?

A woman on an online board I'm part of just posted to please pray--that her husband might not make it through the night. He has terminal cancer. They have young children. They only found out about his diagnosis about a month ago. They learned of his prognosis only days ago.

I remember a childhood prayer I said every night. "Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take."

And if he were to take my soul tonight, would I say I had my priorities in line? Today, I would say yes.

I pray tomorrow and the next day and the next, that I still say yes.

Constant diligence and vigilance. "For we know not the hour....."

Naked Skin

(I'll bet that title caught your attention!!)

Do we become less modest as we grow older, or just more comfortable with our bodies? I still need to change behind a curtain at the pool, and take my shower behind a wall.

But there are older women in much different shape than I am who stand buck naked in the open shower with their eyes closed shampooing their hair. There are older women who walk naked into the sauna where I am sitting and proceed to talk to me and apply lotion to their limbs. Still buck naked. How do you talk to someone like that? I tell you how--with your eyes to the ground or on your own feet. Or I suddenly feel the need to get busy applying lotion to myself so I have something else to focus on.

So why does that nakedness bother me? I can place a pillow between the knees of a frail man with terminal illness wasting away in his bed. He can be naked from the waste down and have a catheter in place. He can mumble a request to position the pillow a bit differently for comfort and I gladly assist. And that nakedness doesn't bother me. Somehow in that setting his personhood transcends his wasting shell.

Is there a certain point in life where the perspective changes, or is it a gradual process?--Where what we look like isn't so much a part of who we are any longer?

My 93-Year-Old Teacher

Things I was reminded of today:

You can still see without your eyesight. You just see different things.

A half hour of focused attention and listening reduces the lonliness in a human heart.

Our God-given desires to love and be loved do not diminish even in older age.

We are not our bodies solely. But they are our vessels on this earth, and we are subject to their limitations. And we don't have to like it.

Everyday we have opportunity to submit to God's will. 93-year-olds get more practice at this. And it may still be a struggle.

Our quest to determine the meaning and purpose and impact of our lives does not fade with age.

I feel an envy for a 93-year-old with a terminal illness because as far as I know, she gets to see Jesus face to face before I do.

"Intentional Presence"

At mass tonight, Fr. Dave was talking about how God is an intentional presence in our lives. And it got me to thinking about all of the other "intentional presences" in my life. And am I an intentional presence in others' lives??

I confided in a chaplain coworker of mine 14 years ago as a new hospice social worker that I didn't feel like I was making a difference in any of the lives of the patients I had seen. I felt awkward at times, didn't know what to do, or what to say to make it better. Not only did he remind me that we cannot take others' pain from them, he said, "never underestimate the power of your presence." Hmmm. I often return to that advice when I cannot see the impact of my life on others' lives.

Be an intentional presence.