Friday is the day that all of the Hospice people assigned to Daddy come out. Summer, the Nurse’s Tech was out and cleaned Daddy as she normally does, brought me a fresh box of gloves, got the message relayed that we needed more meds, and radioed the new nurse, Lindsey, about Lewy’s lack of out put into the catheter bag. He is urinating, it’s just slipping out along side the catheter tube into his diapers.
I had been so OK with the catheter, but now I have just plain old incontinence again. Again I am irrigating and now inserting suppositories to help him have a bowel movement. No one ever asked if I wanted him to have bowel movements…I was just fine without that.
As a friend pointed out, and I may have already posted it, but I had always said I could deal with Lewy as long as he could walk and knew who I am.
He can’t walk, and I doubt if he knows who I am more often than not. So here we are, changing wet linens, wiping butt, irrigating his bladder, and worst of all cleaning up the phlegm. I guess there is no need of thinking I can’t keep him here up until the end…that is until they say he is about to depart this world, then I think the Hospice center would be better, only because of the brain donation. We have several bags of ice in the freezer waiting…just in case.
I had a doctor’s appointment so I missed Nurse Lindsey. I had wanted to talk about the catheter and the lack of pee in it. But it is never a problem with Hospice, when Ruth, the grief counselor arrived she made the call to Lindsey and put me on the phone. Now I know if the diaper feels full; even after a couple of days…that is enough out put. I am not to worry, but should I decide to worry, I had her number.
No worries mate, no worries…
The counselor and I sat and talked for a while. She, like me, is a left wing liberal. It was obvious from her worn and tattered Kerry/ Edwards bumper sticker, along with “Give Peace a Chance” and a few other stickers about saving the planet and other such leftist slogans on her mini van. I knew I could be comfortable with her and not have to be careful of what I said. But all of us left wingers are not necessarily into “New Age” things like Healing Touch. I knew of the concept from a dear friend who years ago did the Healing Touch thing over my back (She never touched me) and I remember clearly that my incessant back pain went away. I never understood her explanation of it, but it has to do with getting a person’s lines of energy in order, or properly aligned. The Healer may neve touch you in the process, or they may gently touch you.
After talking for a while the grief counselor mentioned that she practiced the art of Healing Touch, and asked if she could try to “reach” Daddy who at this point in time was deep into a semi comatose state. Sure, why not? I found the process curious, but after my first hand experience with it, who am I to dispute the technique and what it accomplishes?
She asked me to light three candles. The room was sort of dark because of the thunderstorm going on outside, and the rain was loud enough to be clearly heard at Lewy’s bedside. The occasional flash of lighting and rumble of thunder only seemed to help set the mood.
Ruth walked over to Daddy and spoke to him in a very clear calm peaceful way. She called his name. He remained asleep. She began to do her work - the "Magnetic Unruffling"- by starting at Daddy’s head and with both hands she made a motion like she was brushing out hair from a center part. Long hair that went perpendicular to Daddy’s body then flipped up on the ends. After she made the “flip” at the end of the hair I was imagining, she would twiddle her fingers like she was spreading Fairy Dust or glitter about; flitting out some unseen very tiny things from her fingers. She repeated this stroking motion with both hands over and over. As she did them, she moved from the top of his head to about his knees.
She then went back to the top of Daddy’s head and made similar motions but it was more like pulling hair up into a ponytail straight up off the top of Daddy’s head. Again after finishing each stroke of the ponytail she would twiddle her fingers as if to flick something off of them.
After a bit of this Daddy and Lewy woke up. Daddy was in there, trying to talk. Lewy was in there trying to reach out and take Ruth’s hands. She took his hand and held it for several minutes, talking to Daddy about how long he had lived and how long he had fought, and that it was now time to turn loose and go be with Momma. Ruth called my Mommas name and asked Daddy if he could see her. He pointed over Ruth’s shoulder and said …over there”…
Ruth continued to hold his hand and talk to him. He mumbled a bit, but neither of us could understand what he was trying to say. She asked if he knew where Pauline was. He pointed toward the foot of the bed where I was sitting. She then asked if he had anything to say to me.
No response.
Ruth began again telling him it was OK to go, his work here was done. He should take Momma’s hand and go walk with her.
I just sat sobbing as I watched. She told him my mother and my brother were both waiting on him. It was time he should say good bye to me and go be with them.
She spoke to him a few times more and Lewy drifted back into sleep.
It was getting late and pretty dark and stormy. Ruth apologized for staying so late. Really, no apology is necessary. None at all. If nothing else she forced me to start dealing with him leaving me behind. And she made him smile. Really, no apology necessary.
As Ruth was making her way out, Lewy woke up and told Hubbie he had just seen the most beautiful woman he had ever seen in his life as he pointed to where he had seen Momma.
Whatever you did, thank you Ruth. I hope Momma is there waiting on him. Their fifty two years together was not nearly long enough.
3 comments:
kddove said...
Again, i apologize for comparing my doggie to your daddy... but that's what i was doing with lucy... telling her it was ok to go if she needed to... i told her that for a few weeks and a lot the last night. i told her thanks for everything and that i loved her more than anything in the universe, and if she needed to leave, i understood. and she finally let go...i guess it may have been silly to talk that much to a deaf dog.. but i know she understood.
Stella said...
How perfectly beautiful. It could make you feel as if you were also in the presence of Momma.
This from Stella, a staunch conservative.
old friend said...
another one of those WOW moments, Pauline! I am so thankful for the body that makes up Hospice.
(((((HUGS)))), tears, and laughs,
old friend