TheBanyanTree: Hospice Chapter 1

[Monique Colver]

I've completed my hospice orientation and am now a hospice volunteer. Or
will be, when I have a patient to attend to. We had twelve hours of
orientation over 4 days, for this is not the type of thing they just throw a
warm body at, apparently. We must be educated and oriented, and we must
learn what our responsibilities are, and how hospice works, and we must be
warned. Very much warned. Occasionally one of my fellow volunteers would
blurt out a question that had just occurred to them, a question wreathed in
panic, such as, "What if they die while we're there? What do I do?" Or "What
if their head explodes while I'm there, what do I DO?"

                To the latter question the answer is, obviously, stand back.
I don't need to be told this. I know it instinctively. And yet this rarely
happens, either the exploding head or the patient dying while we're there,
though it can. Usually by that time the patient's family is creating a crowd
around the sickbed and the volunteers aren't really needed.

                During orientation we were told many true stories as
examples of what we may encounter. Elderly people who have kitty obsessions,
grumpy dying people who aren't pleased about their life expectancy, people
not ready for what's coming and people who are, and one story about a
patient who has schizophrenia and a brain tumor, and who is very difficult
to work with because she has no one to help, she had been living alone,
she's been kicked out of foster homes for being difficult and foul-mouthed.
Another volunteer, Sally, shuddered, and said, "I don't want to deal with
any crazy people. I just want to read to some nice old people."

                Understandable. The volunteer coordinator slash chaplain
takes everything she knows about us and the patients to decide who she
thinks would be a good fit. Sally will not be dealing with the crazy lady
because she doesn't want to. Hopefully they'll find Sally some nice dying
woman she can read to.

                On the last day I was issued my supplies: rubber gloves,
just in case, a mask, just in case, alcohol wipes, just in case, and gel
sterilizer to be used before and after and whenever, so I don't contaminate
the dying. And they don't contaminate me.

                And then we wait for our background checks to be completed.

                Today the volunteer coordinator slash chaplain, Charlean,
called me. I like Charlean. If I needed  a chaplain, I'd want Charlean. She
asked for my year of birth for my background check, which I was sure I'd
provided, and then she asked me to consider something, and to take some time
thinking about it. She said it was totally fine if I didn't want to, but if
I could at least consider it for a few days, because I would do this well.
Yes. It's the foul-mouthed schizophrenic with the protruding brain tumor
that no one knows what to do with. That is who Charlean wants to match me
with because I have some experience in this field. Not in the brain tumor
field, certainly, but in the mental illness field.

                Charlean is quite insistent that she only wants me to do it
if I really want to, and to take some time thinking about it. So I am.
Thinking about it. I don't know yet if I'll take on schizophrenic lady with
brain tumor. This is not a decision to be made lightly, after all. If I say
no will they find me some calm elderly person who just wants me to sit
quietly and who won't call me horrible names? But then who will help
schizophrenic lady? Not my problem – only my problem if I accept this
assignment. Why do I feel like I'm on Mission Impossible? Not the kind with
spies and guns, just the abysmally difficult kind, which is actually much
safer since I won't be fearing for my life. Not such a bad deal well when I
look at it like that, is it?

                I'll have to think about it.

-- 
Monique Colver