TheBanyanTree: Today's Hospice Story

[Monique Colver]

Also found on my various blogs

      “Bedpan,” she croaks out, barely intelligibly, and her right hand, the
only one that still works, flutters on the covering sheet before grasping
and pushing it down.

                “I’m sorry,” I tell her, “But I can’t, they told me not to.”
Besides that, I think but don’t say, I’m spectacularly unqualified to lift
you, and if I move you I’m likely to hurt you, I’m an accountant, and we
don’t know how to do these things. Got any numbers you’d like me to add up?

                But she’s insistent. “Go potty,” she says, again, and so I
make a half-hearted stab at it, which is what I do when people want things,
getting the bedpan, rolling her slightly, but I see she is heavily diapered
and double diapered, so there’s no chance.

                I tell her I know it’s hard, but if she really must go, to
go ahead and go. They told me they’d clean her up when they got home so it
“may be stinky,” they’d said. I’m not so much worried about being offended
by smells as I am by Agnes’s reluctance. She looks at me uncomprehendingly,
as if I’ve suggested she climb a try and shit on innocent passers-by.

                “I don’t want to hurt you,” I say, because I really don’t.
“Someone will be here soon to help with this.”

                The phone rings repeatedly this morning, between the hours
of 8:30 and noon. Hospice, the physical therapist is coming between 1 and 2.

                Hospice, again, the aide is coming for a bath and such
between 11 and 12.

                The pharmacy, they have something in that someone wanted for
Agnes.

                A salesman. I don’t care.

                Hospice, again, for the third time, the RN, and she’ll be by
between 3:30 and 5:00.

                I hope that’s everyone. Dying takes a village.

                But hey, someone’s going to be here between 11:00 and 11:30,
giving me and Agnes hope for a future potty break.

                Agnes does not want to wait, and again, for the third time,
she pulls down the sheet and tries to turn, saying, “potty,” and gesturing
at me to do something about it. I do something about it all right. I lean in
close to her and say, “Someone will be here soon from hospice,” and I pull
the sheet back up so she won’t get cold.

                Helpful I am.

                Water. Ice. Water. Ice. Agnes is insatiable today. I give
her teaspoons of water and ice, one after the other, and she keeps asking
for more. “Thirsty, today, aren’t you?” I ask her, and she smiles at me. I
wouldn’t really know if she’s thirstier today than usual. This is my first
day with Agnes.

                She gets me to come over again and move her forward, and she
indicates she wants her back scratched, so I do, over the thin nightie, and
I feel all her bones, as if she’s barely anything else at all, nothing more
than bones anymore.

                There are a profusion of kitties living here, but I don’t
remember all the details. Two kittens locked in one bedroom, but if they
come out another cat can’t be in. A cat in another room, and she can’t go
outside. And another cat, a Siamese, who can’t come in except under certain
circumstances that escape me (maybe when the kittens are in hiding?). It’s
okay though, for none of them make any pretense of being present and if I
didn’t know better they wouldn’t even exist.

                Water. Ice. Bed up. Agnes likes to sit up, and then I prop
her up with pillows. But then she removes the one on the side holding her
head up, so her head falls forward when she starts dozing. She looks
uncomfortable, but last time I attempted to make her more comfortable her
eyes popped open and she said something that could have been, “water.” Or it
could have been “who are you and what have you done with my daughters?” It
could have been, “get me out of this hell hole,” but I doubt it. But when I
offered her water from a teaspoon her eyes lit up, faded blue, the only
spots of color left in her, and she opened her mouth wide.

                The aide comes and takes care of the potty issue, and she
gives Agnes a partial, which I suppose means a partial bath, and she makes
Agnes comfortable again. The aide is efficient and kind and beautiful, she
speaks loudly enough that Agnes can understand what’s being done, and before
she leaves she bends down close to Agnes and says, “Thank you for letting me
take care of you today.” Agnes smiles at her, beatifically, from her
horizontal position, drifting off to sleep. On Friday the aide will return
for a full bath.

                I think Agnes might sleep now, she must be exhausted, and
the physical therapist is coming in an hour, but no, it was an act for the
aide, and as soon as she’s gone Agnes wants to sit up, she wants water, she
wants the bed this way and that.

                I’m not allowed to give meds, so I hope Agnes’s pain holds
off for a bit longer. I’m not allowed to do much of anything but spoon feed
water, adjust the bed and pillows, answer the phone, talk to Agnes, and help
myself to anything in the kitchen.

                I don’t, I never, except once when I was starving at Fred’s
and decided one piece of toast would be okay, eat at a patient’s house.

                I hold Agnes’s hand, and I look at our hands together. At
93, Agnes has a few years on me, so suddenly my middle-aged hand looks
younger. Want to shave years off your appearance? Hang around old people. I
tell Agnes her ring is pretty and she smiles, and it’s a pretty good smile
for someone who has cancer and had a stroke two weeks ago.

                I know so little about Agnes, except her name, and that she
has two twin daughters who are taking care of her. I know what’s killing
her, and it’s the same thing that killed my friend Stew, and my mom, and I
wonder if she said everything she had to say before the stroke happened. I
hope she didn’t wait too long to say anything that needed to be said.

                Agnes’s grandson comes home, and tells me he’s not usually
back from work so soon, but his mom, one of the daughters, called him and
said she needs a couple more tests and so they’ll be later than they’d
planned. I’d told them that was okay, I could hang around until . . .
whenever they got back, and I tell him the same thing. He’d watch her, if I
needed to leave, but Agnes doesn’t like him to watch her because he’s a man
with important things to do. Her daughter tells me later that when Agnes was
still getting around she didn’t like her grandson to take her to the store,
because it’s not right to expect a man to wait around while one goes
shopping. I tell him not to worry about it, I’ll just keep hanging out with
Agnes, and he goes to his room. At least if Agnes needs something for the
pain he’s there now, so I can say, “Look, let’s give her something for the
pain,” and I won’t be overstepping my bounds.

                Agnes does start to drift off then, sitting up, her head
slumped forward a bit, sleeping, finally, and when her daughters get home
she’s still asleep, and I leave her like that. I tell them I’ll come back
next week, and at first the daughter I’m talking to doesn’t understand that
they don’t need to have doctor’s appointments, they don’t need to have an
urgent task to attend to, if all they want is a couple of free hours to take
a break from the 24 hour responsibility I can fill in, providing water and
ice and the occasional back rub, and all they have to do is tell me what
time they want me there.

                Volunteers just do the simple things, like give people a
little bit of time.

-- 
Monique Colver