My sweet sister just finally read through these. She said she was back in the room. We both go back to the room from time to time.
Kristy and I were gone from our homes for 2 months. 2! That's a long time to not sleep in your own bed. Meg, Kristy and I danced around the question....Jesus Christ how much longer!?
No one wants to have someone die faster, usually. This is the hospice lesson, questioning how much longer you can keep pace is a very reasonable question. The whole village, it took all of us to take care of him. He spent $14K in the last 30 days of his life. He had brain metastasis meaning the cancer spread to his brain. He lost sight in one eye. His hearing was fine one day, for shit the next day, complete with turning the TV up so loud the dust wanted to leave the house!
Getting him to accept hospice was an uphill push. He kept asking why I was so gung-ho about it. So, I dropped it until he was ready. Everyone who came by from hospice was very nice. He wasn't a huge fan of the social worker. I think, she thought that social working was social time. She answered her phone for clearly non-work related calls and he was all done with her. His consistent nurse case manager was excellent. She had a great way of making things his idea and presented with options always. (Married men, you should know that this is a woman skill that has been used on you, repeatedly, and will continue to be, because it works. This or hearing it out of another man's mouth.) We talked about the in-patient unit for when he was ready. He stayed resistant to the in-patient unit until he didn't.
On a Sunday, he was having increased pain. We weren't able to keep up with it and he was frustrated. We called the hospice and the nurse called us back to triage over the phone. Luckily, it was his case manager who was on call that weekend so she called us back. I stayed out of the way and the conversation. The nurse spoke to my sister (the go-between as assigned by Gary) about his pain and getting it getting worse and all the things. Somehow I got the phone in my hands. I asked the nurse if she would talk to him directly about the need for the in-patient unit. She did and she convinced him. I took the phone back and we scheduled the time we would arrive at the in-patient unit.
So I mentioned to everyone that our scheduled time in would be in about 4-ish hours. You see, the boy couldn't do anything quickly. He had to ease into the idea. Then he had to ease into the idea of the idea happening. Then he needed to ease into it happening. Then he had to ease into it being done in a certain time. Then he had to ease into the idea of getting ready. You get what I am saying.... this was an amplification of him usually, it wasn't just after cancer came along, that just made it worse. Ask anyone who knew him...Did Gary need amplification?.... go ahead, take your time, you'll come up with the answer.
Meg asked him if he would like her to pack his backpack for him and he said yes. She knew what he would want, knew what to pack and did it. In true Louk form, he then questioned every damned thing she could possibly put in it. Headphones, pjs, phone charger, on and on. I won't tell you about the computer equipment he thought he would need. It's too much.
On the way there he wanted to stop at a convenience store. Apparently, when he was traveling for work he would stop at these gas station convenience stores and buy an egg salad or tuna salad sandwich. You know the ones that come in a little triangle package? So those. When I look at one of those all I can think about is the misery of a mayo induced case of food poisoning. **shiver**. So he opted for 2 sandwiches, egg and tuna. I'm still shivering and almost gagging.
Once we arrived at the in-patient unit, Shepherd's Cove, he proceeded to eat BOTH sandwiches in the car before we could go in. He was riding with Meg so I don't know the conversation around all that, BUT I bet Meg was just doing a lot of nodding. Just nod and smile and get to the place. Rinse...repeat. 2 sandwiches. 2. This is the kid who couldn't drink a whole boost. 2 sandwiches. Gross ones. With mayo. From the convenience store. Down the hatch like a pelican with its beak strait up and swallowing furiously. I don't know if he thought no one would ever feed him again or what but, 2.
Louk men are all the same. They are fun, funny, infuriating, fun loving, infuriating, clever, infuriating, witty. He walks into the Cove and struts up to the end of the hallway where the nurses station is. Along the way folks have been telling him that is room is BACK that way. We passed it. His reply was that he needed to get the lay of the land and find the exits. **3 sets of eyes rolling**
Once we were in his room, he got settled, the staff came in to introduce themselves and HE told them all the rules.
He knew when he walked through the door he wasn't coming out. The three of us knew it, too.
No comments:
Post a Comment