I was present at a patient’s house this past week at the moment she passed. We were able to console family and set in motion mortuary and other services. Our team handled themselves well.
Before the patient passed I visited with some family members. They mentioned that our social worker called a court justice in Kansas to get a family member out of jury duty. That call allowed a visit during the patient’s last days.
Since I am the owner of Texas Hospice, I am careful to interview family when I visit patients. This family gave high marks all the way around. They even went so far as to call the referring doctor and offer a praising report on our service. I am delighted to give kudos to the whole team that handled this patient’s care.
Helping family through a death is not easy. Especially during holidays, family members who have not been part of the end-of-life care decisions fly into town and get involved. Understandably, they are emotional and become frustrated. They often they direct their emotions toward us. I suppose that is part of the job for our nurses, aids, social worker and chaplain.
With a separate patient family, we experienced this sort of interaction over the Thanksgiving weekend. It presented an extra challenge. It required being comfortable and cool when we were misunderstood. It was an opportunity to receive and give grace, and, because it was handled with maturity, ultimately invited admiration from the patient and family.
It is difficult to keep cool when someone is pushing your buttons. At my medical office this past week, I had to listen to someone lecture me on why my diagnosing their family member with dementia was wrong. In this case, this person didn’t handle themselves well. They sort of “talked down” to me. I almost cracked and said something awful and cynical, like, “I suppose my years of medical training and experience is getting in the way of me making an accurate diagnosis.”
It was good for me to have that experience so that I could relate with the folks on the Texas Hospice team who deal with similar circustances. “Be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to anger” I think is in the book of James somewhere. My that verse is easy to quote to someone else.
