Personal Journal

Jean & Hospice

Whoa dog am I tired.
I haven't slept much today.
Jean came home from the hospital yesterday, and she is now a patient (at home) for the local Hospice group. Which means everyone is on board to help her pass from life as comfortably as possible.
You'd think that would be easy, woulnd't you? Let someone die.
I struggled with the notion of allowing Jean to suffocate. But I had... have a good doctor (and now nurses) who made it clear: respiratory failure is going to be the end for most of us. There are a lot of ways to get there, but ultimately it's when you stop processing oxygen that you die.
So I've come to the realization that that is how Jean is going to die. I'm also comfortable with the knowledge that her respiratory failure (it sounds so much cleaner than "suffocation") is going to be absent the kinds of physical trauma that ordinarily accompanies suffocation. Her brain will be given medication so that it's not aware of what's going on. She'll be relaxed. Her body will not convulse.

Still, I couldn't sleep last night, because I was worried about her breathing. I feel this need to be there when she reaches the end, to be the savior with the plunger of morphine, and of course, my love for her. I can tell that I'm not going to sleep much, because being around for that moment is the most important thing in my life right now. I promised her. Dear god please help me fulfill that promise, and every goal in my life will be secondary.

The Chaplain wanted to come around today. I said yes at first, then cancelled via the office (not him). Then he called back to reschedule and I said I don't know when I want to see him.

Truth is that I don't. Yeah, I like Christianity generally speaking. Good unifying force; great mythos about the nature of man and the importance of striving to allow our spirits to be our guiding force.

But I don't give a crap about any church. There are a few I outright have hostility for, and we are in an uneasy truce. Mostly because I don't care about them. So what do I do? Stand up for yourself, I hear the conscience call. Niether you nor Jean want somebody who thinks he's an agent doing "god's work" coming around to try to tell you how this whole fuckign mess makes sense.

So I should tell the guy, hey, thanks, but no thanks. I mean, after all, shouldn't I have learned something from Jean about living how you feel.?

I don't often fall asleep while writing, but it's happening now. So off I go. I have to give her her meds at 6 a.m.


It is never too late to be what you might have been. -- George Eliot
Courage to start and willingness to keep everlasting at it are the requisites for success. -- Alonzo Newton Benn