Tag Archives: Patient

It’s My Time

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lost

She was lying on her bed surrounded by green drab walls and dimly lit lights. Staring out the small window surrounded by dingy white curtains. Willing herself to die. Only days prior she had given up on her life.

Filled with  tears spilling  over her heart she cried. How had things went from joy to sorrow. She turned her head when she heard the knock at the door. The nurse came in and suddenly tears flowed from the bedridden patient‘s eyes.

The nurse sat her chart down and stepped close to the bed and took Allie’s hands in hers. “It’s going to be alright honey. I know you are hurting right now. But you are not alone deary. I am  here and God is standing to the side of you”.

Tears poured from Allie’s eyes. “I feel all alone. No one cares about an old lady anymore. I just want to die. I have nothing to live for.”

“Oh please don’t talk like that dear one. Please don’t say those things. You’re going to make me start crying and how will that make me look when I go into the next patients room?”

The nurse checked the IV‘s hanging to see if the drip was still going at the correct proportion. She took Allie’s vitals and checked the entrance of her IV needle to make sure it wasn’t turning red or swelling.

“Are you comfortable little one? Do you want another blanket?” Allie shook her head no and then turned towards the lonely window again. As the nurse began to leave she said,” How about if I come back and sit with you after I get off of work this afternoon? Would you like that?” There was no response.

The room silenced again except for the occasional carts going down the hall. The television was on but she paid no attention. Every once in a while she would see a bird fly by.

She must have drifted off to sleep because when she came around she heard voices. She didn’t open her eyes but listened. Don’t we all wish we could change the way things end up in the end? It’s so sad when they are brought in here. By the time they arrive in this room it is just a matter of time.

I know what you mean. But the truth is that people just don’t know how to act or what to say at this stage. Their tongues get tongue-tied. They aren’t used to seeing their loved ones like this.

I know, I know, but it just isn’t right. These people shouldn’t be laying here dying all alone. It’s just a damn shame. I just want to shake the shit out of the families. This is one time that they need to step up to the plate and be here.

Allie laid there crying inside and out. She was so scared. Scared of dying alone. She didn’t want to leave her children and grandchildren behind and yet she couldn’t take the pain of barely seeing them.

The bell began chirping on her monitor. Nurses came running in. A call from the station was made over the intercom. Stat  code blue room 200. Stat code blue doctor needed in room 200.

In only seconds Allie’s room was filled with quick-moving staff. Blood pressure was taken and noted. The doctor said in a take charge voice,”Get the cart and hurry”. For several minutes they worked competently trying to save this life.

God wasn’t ready to let her come home yet and she was saved. After the staff was assured she was stable they left with instructions that she be monitored every half hour.

Allie must have been dreaming. She dreamed that she was going to see Jesus. But when she opened her eyes the drab green welcomed her back once again. Please Lord, please hear my cry. I am ready to come home. Please don’t make me stay here.

The clock on the wall slowed down and minutes snailed by. A minister walked into the room and for a moment stood at the end of her bed. He wasn’t sure if she realized he was here. Allie’s head turned in his direction. She recognized him from her church. Maybe he was coming to tell her it was time.

“Hi Allie. I wanted to stop in and see how you are. I wondered if you would like me to pray with you.” She nodded and he walked to her side and took her hand and the two of them prayed together.

It seemed like doves came into the room as peace fell over her. The drab green room turned instantly to a pale blue. She thought she saw the curtains blowing gently in the breeze. She looked towards the ceiling and thought it seemed brighter.

The doves cooing gently rested around her body as if waiting their cue to lift her to the heavens. The minister laid her hand back on her blanket. He smiled at her and she returned it with words, ” I am ready.”

“We all love you Allie. You worked hard for the Lord. I believe you will be rewarded in heaven for all of your good deeds.”

Saying he would come back the next day he left her room. As she drifted in and out of this life she saw vivid colors of the rainbow. Stars shone brightly over her, forming a path for her walk home. Arms of loved ones were held out waiting for her.

Allie smiled and her last words spoken were,” I love you kids.”

She was gone. The nurse came in after her work shift and noticed what had happened. She walked over and turned the monitor off. She closed Allie’s lids and straightened the sheet and blanket neatly, pulling the covers up over her patient’s face.

She walked out of the door and leaning against the wall she wept. Good bye my dear friend. Thank-you for giving me a few moments to see what a beautiful person you were.

She dried her eyes with her arm and walked to the nurse’s station. Room 200, she just passed a way.

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Updated Soul

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Chip

Chip

I am sorry I lost it. I feel so ashamed for my behavior earlier. The thought of Al not being able to walk anymore sort of made me crazy. I try so hard to stay a tough heart person but I guess I suck at it.

It isn’t truly that Al will can not walk, it is that it isn’t safe for him to walk. The little bit of muscle he has left will be drained quickly. I talked to them and there will be no more therapy, no more leg exercises, only arms, to strengthen more or as much as possible to now keep the wheel chair going by himself.

Everything in stages. Walk alone, then learn to walk with walker, then different muscles to learn to push the wheelchair before someone has to push him. I know that I will survive and I appreciate all of the prayers.

I feel like the only way I can get through this is to be hard skinned. I see that a lot these days. People pretending they don’t care about anyone but their own life. No more helping hands unless you make them feel so guilty they reach out.

The world has changed and yet I have remained back in time. I really wish I wasn’t make out of cotton balls and fluff clouds. I wish I could just say, hey, this is the deck that I was dealt, so deal with it.

I went back and read that blog and my face blushed. I sounded like a kitten that got its tail run over. There are so many people who are facing bigger challenges than Al. I am ashamed and so I am sorry I acted like a big baby.

Nothing has changed since I wrote it but minutes ticked by on the clock. No one was waiting for me to wake up after my nap. I still had to make my own supper when I got up. So I need to deal with what life throws me. I am the biggest one to reach out to others and be there, but I am the worst at staying strong myself.

Can I turn this heart and soul in on a newer model? I need to be updated. Please someone check the chip in my brain. I think it is burnt out.

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Daily Prompt: Take It From Me/ The Daily Post

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English: A doctor examines a female patient.

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve given someone which  you failed to take yourself?

This is an area in my life, where my biggest fear in my life shows. Health, yes, my health is the fear of all fears in my life.

I am the first one to advise someone to go to the doctor, to get it checked out, do not wait. With being in the medical field for so many years, I sometimes get questions about others health.

Of course, I am not a doctor, so I can not diagnose, but simple things, like remedies, or signs that I know should take your rear end to the doctor, I am willing to mention. With my own health, the caring of other patients for so long, as made me the total opposite.

You see, I have been on both sides of the wooden fence, and sometimes even straddle with one leg dangling on each side. I have seen the patient that has not felt well for sometime, finally they decide to go to the doctor, and find out they have a cancer.

This information blows the patients life totally apart. The thinking changes, the outlook on life goes from happy-go-lucky to sad and a time bomb waiting to go off. I have also seen the side of the patient who is dying.

I have had patients dying in my arms, and patients, that beg me to help them end their pain. I have cried with patients, laid in their bed beside them and comforted them while they are trying so hard to stay awake, afraid that if they sleep they will never wake.

I have seen what chemo treatments can do to a happy soul, desperately trying to live longer, healthier, whither a way right in front of my eyes. They lose their hair, they vomit constantly, causing the sick body to become weak very fast.

The worry and stress to family and friends, can never be totally healed, knowing now that their loved ones will leave sooner than later. Final arrangements are made for funerals, trying to squeeze everything in to their short-lived lives that they always wanted to do.

Visitors coming in to the home or hospital with sad faces. Spouses, going through their own hell as they come to realize that they are going to lose their life long partner. People whispering in the background, about what is going to happen to the homes, the personal items within the house, wills, money. It can go on and on up until the actual leaving of this earth.

I have seen too much, dealt with far too much  a patient’s emotional roller coaster ride, to not want this for myself. I know that I am going to die. This is one area, that no matter who is President of the country, or no matter how rich or poor you are, we all are going to die.

When I took care of my father the year he was dying, I saw him go from a lively man with hope, to a weak vegetable, that cared about nothing.  I can not do this. I can not put family or friends through this. I go to the doctor every three months to check my diabetes, and I will go to the doctor for infections, but I will not go for other reasons. Why? because I do not want to know.

There are  probably many of you who will disagree with me on this, and it is alright. This is what is wonderful about living in a land of being able to make your own choices. What I do, is live life. I want to live until my death comes, enjoying my writing and my friends and family.

I don’t want anyone to come around out of pity or placing someone in a position of not knowing what to say. I often kid with people and tell them, you will know when I am sick, when I finally reach my perfect weight goal. Seriously, I just want to live my life as normal as I can, until it is over.

God knows my ending date. I can go to clinics and shove vitamins down my throat, and buy all of the latest exercise equipment, but in the end, when I ask myself, do I want to live to be 100? My answer is always the same, no.

I don’t want to live when I have to lean on someone. When I can no longer feed myself, or walk, or can not breathe without help of a machine, or be on the strongest dose of lasix, I want to go home to heaven.

Of course I can not control so many things about my own body, but I can try my hardest to live happy.  I guess I can not say anymore on this topic that can close this topic out, we shall just have to wait my time out and see what God has in store for me, and then I can write my last words, and close this chapter of myself.

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Daily Prompt, The Daily Post At WordPress

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Illustration of the Parkinson disease by Sir W...

Daily Prompt

by michelle w. on October 25, 2012

Take a complicated subject you know more about than most people, and explain it to a friend who knows nothing about it at all.

I don’t know much more than anyone else in the world, but I may know a little more about Parkinson’s Disease and from working in the hospice world and caring for end of life patients, I feel like I may be more aware of what happens to ill patients.

Parkinson’s Disease is an illness that affects the brain. It comes completely geared to appear in five stages. The first stages through fourth, are sometimes easiest to deal with. The patient may be able to still work, and lead a productive life, with some noticeable tremors, and some gait issues.

As each phase comes to life, the ability to stand straight becomes harder as the body stiffens. The brain does not let body parts know what to do next,  the legs stiffen and the feet can be found to shuffle along,and so falls can become a part of every day life. Eating may become difficult due to the tremors, which can be in the hands, legs, head, or sometimes the complete body will tremor.

This in turn takes its toll on the body and makes walking harder. There are medications that PD patients can take. They can not cure PD, but they can slow it down, but sometimes the medications themselves, can make it worse in the end result.

In the fifth stage of PD, walking becomes to the point of having to have help to walk, such as a caregiver, walkers, and sometime wheelchairs. Dementia along with confusion, tears, depression can be a part of every day life.

The fifth stage can bring incontinence, constipation, lack of eating skills, tube feeding, bed ridden, and can also stop the recognition of family and friends. PD does not take the patients life. Usually a lung infection or bad cold is the culprit that ends the life in the end.

As a caregiver, it is very important to have a compassionate heart with ill patients. The patient is suffering, sometimes not realizing why this is happening to them, or the fear of death may become an obsession along with fear.

A caregiver’s life can be quite stressful while taking care of the patient, a caregiver can actually forget to look after their own selves. You can become worn down, tired, stressed out, cry easily. It is very important that the caregiver takes good care of themselves, and takes the breaks that are offered.  You are not there just for the patient, or for the money you earn, you are there also for the family who is suffering right along with the patient.

To be a caregiver, it takes more than a body showing up to do a job. There has to be a desire from the heart to help this patient have the best quality of life he or she can  have. Someone to hold their hand, talk softly to them, read to them, and sometimes to just sit with them. When you can have this along with the daily care of feeding, bathing, dressing, doctor’s appointments, bill paying, you are a caregiver that everyone wants to have when the time in their own home, someone is needed.

As for me, I am tired, and I carry a lot of stress, but I would rather take care of my own brother who has PD, then to let him suffer alone in a nursing home, for as long as I can do it. I am gathering great memories, and will have these to ponder back on when this part of our lives are over.

We all need to feel loved and needed. ill and elderly can revert back to children, and we can all remember how much we wanted to fit in, and be accepted and to never feel alone.

I have taken care of a lot of patients, geriatric, mentally challenged, disabled children and adults, and the dying patients, but in my own personal opinion, PD takes the cake. It is the worst illness I have ever come across. There is no ending date, such as a cancer patient. PD patients can live long lives with this illness. There also is not that much information about PD, making it harder to get professionals to  understand what things are like at home.

I hope that one day when my brother’s time is near to go to see heaven, that he knows I did my best, and that I loved him very much.

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I Had To Talk Back!!!

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English: GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba – Navy Cmdr. Geo...

Back in the early spring, I walked down this same road, and now today, it has come to take me back down the familiar path. I had to take Al to the dentist. It is not a pleasant trip at all. He is fearful, as most dental patients are, and when he is afraid, the tremors quadruple in numbers. It is like watching several hummingbirds go from feeder to feeder.

As the last time I took him to a dentist, I could tell, even though the dentist did not come out and say it so plainly, that he was afraid to work on Al’s mouth. The tremors, the tears and the attitude just aren’t very appealing to strangers.

This time I took him to a brand new dentist. A place highly advertised with the most gentle of care and a friendly atmosphere. We did not have to wait long for an appointment, only three days, and it was fairly close to home. Al had told me that last evening it took him three hours to go to sleep from the pain.

I am surprised that he feels pain in any area, with the amounts of pain pills he is on, but this is what he said. He also asked me if this was September or November, and he said today was the 13, instead of the 25th. It is alright, he snapped out of that partially and did tell me today was Thursday. I blame some of this on his medications and the rest I always dump on the disease, Parkinson’s.

We get called back to the x-rays within  15 minutes, and Al does very well with these, because he has had them before. Then we are led back to the dental chair. When I see it for myself, I call it the big monster, that is going to hurt me! I am the biggest baby on earth when it comes to a dentist.

As soon as they get him situated in his chair, the technician leaves and they leave us in the room about twenty minutes. Now this is just enough time for Al to start going frantic, and he did. I had purposely asked when calling and making the appointment, to have an experienced dentist for Al’s type and to not let him sit, that he needed to be taken care of immediately, as the longer he sat, the worse he got.

No one paid attention to my request, so by the time the technician had come back and she and the dentist, (which, by the way, looked the age of 21, like a brand new dentist) looked over Al’s x-rays, Al was a big old mess. Tears galore, shaking tremors, lack of comprehending, you name it,  he had it going on.

It did not matter how I tried to soothe him, his memories were pain and needles. The dentist rambled off all the things that could possibly need to be done, and just from her talking, I could see dollar signs spinning quickly in my head. I think my eye balls were like spinning tops.

I gently explained Al and his conditions for the second time and also that he was in his fifth stage of PD, and that Medicare does not cover any dental work, so for a lot of reasons, we needed what had to be done, the easiest, and moderately pricing included. She looked at me and smiled.

This tiny young-looking girl, with no pimples or scarring on her face, and her leather knee rise boots on a sunny warm 78 degree day and her short little dress, looks at me and says, his teeth are dirty. He has two teeth that need to have root canals done plus caps.

I looked at her and smiled my dirty white teeth at her and said, I just told you he does not have insurance and his PD stage, so there is no way we can afford the couple of thousands of dollars you are talking about.

She flipped her pretty dark hair over her shoulder and smiled back at me and said, well you can just have his two teeth pulled, and he will have to figure out how to eat. You had his other side of his top two teeth pulled and he managed to find a way to eat, so he will have to do it this time also! smile, smile!

I asked her how was he to eat if he didn’t have the proper chewing teeth on either side, and she said,he’ll figure it out! She said that they had an oral surgeon that would take them out and he comes there once a month at the beginning of each month.

I calculated in my head how far it was to the first week of the new month, and the fact that the dentist was prescribing him some penicillin, and also remembered the fact that they advertised the best deals in town, plus the biggie was, they had programs for the poor, that allowed big discounts.

I told her alright, let’s find out what you can do for him. We left him sitting in his chair and walked over to the principal’s office, actually the manager’s office where they give you great deals on work needing to be done.

My goal was to get the penicillin started in Al right away, and then get those two teeth removed at a price he could afford. We sit and talk and the soonest they could get him in was November 19th. What happened to the first week of the month? Oh well, it fills up quickly. The price was over $1100.00 for two teeth for IV sedation. This dentist that saw Al said she did not have the experience to deal with Al, so she did not want to pull his teeth. Thanks so much, and I believe I requested a dentist with experience.

The price made me gulp, and there was no great deals, because the deals only come with general dentistry work, even if you are poor or disabled and have no money or not much. The time of the appointment was too far away. Who wants to suffer for almost another month?

I then asked them to call the oral surgeon and get the x-rays faxed to them and set up an appointment for him to have them pulled where I had taken him in the spring. At the previous dentist office, they did all the dirty work for me. They called the surgeon, faxed the x-rays, and set the appointment. Not here! The comment made to me when I asked for their help was, we don’t do this service if you feel you need to go somewhere else.

Now I was pissed off, and it is not good to get sister Terry pissed off. I have  a brother who is in his last stages of PD, and he is sitting in the opposite room crying and freaking out, and it is hard to get him to anywhere in this world, and you can’t do this for me? What? I told them they were down right rude, and I was going to make sure I told anyone who asked that this placed sucked donkey you know whats.

Their eyes popped out of their head. They obviously had not been treated this kind way of mine before, but I was not going to drag this brother of mine back to the car, take x-rays over to another dentist, drag him back into another dentist office, watch him freak out even more, just to set up an appointment. I stood up from my chair, and I told them, you ARE going to call this place and you will set a time, and I will take the damn x-rays myself, so go get them for me! She picked up the phone in silence and made the call. We are now scheduled for November 13th, for a little less than a thousand dollars.

She then went and got the x-rays and put them in an envelope, and I took them from her hand, and went over and helped my brother out of the monster seat, and we began to leave. As we passed by the manager’s office, she was still sitting there in shock at my treatment back to her, and I poked my head in and with my biggest dirty tooth smile, I said, You all have a nice day now, ya hear????

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