The simplest of questions are asked before someone enters into a hospice’s care. Versions of those questions continue after a hospice staff has arrived at a home or facility to serve the needs of a dying patient.
Simple doesn’t mean easy.
Simple can be the hardest of all.
The hospice patient asks:
Will I get better?
What is wrong with me?
When can I walk again?
Must I take all those drugs?
Why aren’t I hungry?
I’m sure other equally “simple” questions have been asked. Truly, what is more straightforward than a person wondering when or if they might regain the strength to walk? Or to want to know why they feel so “off?” Or to request why new medications are supposed to be taken?
How will you respond to your loved one when she or he seeks an answer that you already know? This nice (or not so nice), hopeful (or not so hopeful) person you care about (or feel obligated to provide care for) merely wants to know what is happening.
In many relationships, the answers come easily. There are those, before becoming a hospice patient, who understand the cancer’s severity. They are able to discuss the best and worst of what having “six months or less to live” means. Many physicians, before you or your loved one enters into hospice care, regularly communicate choices and options as the COPD, ALS, leukemia, or other diseases impact the body. Everyone—patient, family, caregivers, medical staff—are generally on the same page with the diagnosis and prognosis.
No secrets.
No surprises.
No whispering.
Wouldn’t it be great if all patients and their caregiving families were “on the same page?”
But they are not.
And so, when your dying loved one asks one of those questions with its easy-to-understand words that can be difficult to openly express and emotionally costly to answer—such as Will I get better?—how will you respond? Which of these six options would you choose:
You promise someone else—a nurse, doctor, family member—will answer.
Will I get better?
You: That’s probably a question for the nurse. She’ll be here tomorrow and it’s probably best if you talk to her. You know, she’s the expert on these things. We should wait to hear what she says.
You chatter on like a smarmy politician and never answer.
Will I get better?
You: Hey, I mean we all are hoping and praying that you could better. Didn’t you say you were feeling better yesterday? I mean every day is going to be different. Remember when were kids and we would be sick on Monday and then great by Tuesday? Or what about Aunt Tootsie, who everything figured was gonna die after her accident, and the next year she still brought her god-awful potato salad to the family reunions? You never know what’s going to happen, right? Any-who, you know what they say . . . when the going gets tough, the tough get going! That’s you!
You change the subject to something else.
Will I get better?
You: Have you eaten anything today? I mean, I always get a little hypoglycemic whenever I forget a meal. How about if I get you a snack? Maybe that vanilla pudding you ate a couple of bites of yesterday? Isn’t it your favorite?
You answer with a big fat lie.
Will I get better?
You: I think you’re a little down today, but I’m sure you’ll get better. You’re going to beat this. Those doctors don’t really know you. You’re a fighter, not a quitter.
You tell a nice, white lie.
Will I get better?
You: Let’s just focus on today. We all know this is serious, but didn’t I tell you what the pastor said in last Sunday’s sermon: when God closes a door, He opens a window. Let’s both look for the window, huh? I’m praying for you to get better!
You are honest.
Will I get better?
You: _________________ . . .
Isn’t honesty the best policy?
Well, I suppose sometimes it’s not.
If the person entering into hospice’s care has a form of dementia, family members and caregivers often rightly choose to avoid truth-telling. Because of dementia, labeling their explanations or silences as lies would be unfair. I’m also confident that some reading my six suggestions could give me unique examples about their family. Leo Tolstoy’s oft-used comment on families—Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.—is undeniably correct. Unhappiness, with its companions of anger, envy, grudges, regrets, and more, may prevent any possibility of healthy communication about dying, death, or the grief that follows.
But for all the rest, what prevents us from providing the obvious, easiest, and most truthful response when confronted with an illness that means there are six months or less to live?
Will I get better?
And your answer is . . .
+++++++++++
Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash
My book, A Companion for the Hospice Journey, is available at Amazon.
I would want to know because there would be decisions I would would want to make. Good article Larry!