Ten-Finger Exercises

Flexibility makes for stability

Today I planned to be home by noon, do laundry, finish my poem for Spinning Nouns, prepare for my grief group tonight, and lots of other things I wouldn't get done either. I did expect to do a lot more than I actually did, though.

However, I got in to see a patient who had said, "No chaplain." And it was worth the extra two+ hours that it took. We hit it off pretty well. There were two nurses and a social worker there, and I'm the only one who wasn't preaching to him. I take that back: one of the nurses didn't either.

That's a little frustrating to me, to have other team members trying to say what they're sure will help, even though he's made it clear that he doesn't want anything to do with religion. As he put it, "The only thing God can't take away from me are my memories. He's taken everything else." (Actually, it sounds like he's having some memory loss as well, but not like his wife. She has been unable to even talk for two years due to Alzheimers.)

This is not a person who wants to hear that God loves him. "If this is his way of showing it, I'd just as soon he'd leave me alone."

The social worker, to her credit, did not try to convince him of any such thing. But she talked a lot, telling him how he feels in that way we have of establishing rapport. She didn't need to. It was established. And he needed to do the talking.

Well, I could go on and on, but I'd better get on to a few more basic tasks I need to do, like changing the sheets.

I did get an entry into Spinning Nouns, but it's another silly one, even though I'd hoped to have the time to write a good one. *** I started to write, "There's always tomorrow," but you know what? That's not necessarily so.