It is all about choice. Her choice to live as she wished. Mine to keep or discard baggage without my name on it. I had alot of trouble honouring Alice's choices, but I did. Sometimes I was extremely unprofessional in my outbursts in the Office but it was my way of coping. Alice through the Looking Glass (darkly).
I had not seen Alice for two or three months when I was unexpectedly called to assist someone else with her. She was in bed. As always. Like a few others on our roster Alice liked her bed rather too much. Unlike others this strategy had backfired and she was no longer able to get out of bed unassisted. I pulled off her blanket and was struck by the size of her ankles. I looked closely at her and saw a definite change. From imminently palliative (for the last 5 years) to truly palliative. I must have looked concerned so she asked me what I was doing.
I made some bs thing up and we carried on.
My co-worker was trained in the same University as I was by Nursing Instructors of the same ilk as mine and we do the same things the same way without needing to talk it through. What a pleasure. We were done very quickly and Alice was definitly pleased.
"Now why can't the rest of your crew do things so well?"
(A manipulative statement but of course I agreed ;) )
"What a pleasure it is to have two such well-trained people at the same time and not be put through what I was last night."
(Another manipulative statement which I also silently agreed with.)
I read her notes and several people had documented over the last few weeks, that Alice had stated she was dying and desired no care. "Just leave me alone. AND DON"T CALL AN AMBULANCE."
As we left Alice smiled and I told her how nice it was to see that smile.
"What?"
(She did not hear me.)
I raised my voice.
"YOUR SMILE: IT IS SO NICE TO SEE YOU SMILE."
She made a face and pulled a silly grinning smile which was rather disconcerting as she resembled nothing more closely than an animated corpse.
We left the home together and at the curb I asked my co-worker what the date was.
She looked at me oddly.
I do not know what possessed me to say it to her but I did.
"This is my prediction. Alice won't be here long. I think at the very latest it will be March 15th."
She got a little aggitated and said:
"Why would you say that? What makes you think that?"
"End of life signs", I said. "Anyone else would be long gone and I cannot imagine even Alice staving off the reaper much longer."
She is, of course gone.
The absolute bitter end. That is what they call it.
But the last time I saw Alice she smiled a genuine smile and the other 999 times I saw her she was complaining or arguing or just plain laying there.
So it's not all bad!
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