A story of perseverence

I can’t believe that I had already entered into my fourth year of hospital chaplaincy. It doesn’t seem like five minutes ago that I was so new and inexperienced and didn’t even know how to find my way around the hospital.

A patient that I had met in my first year was re-admitted. I met her initially when she was in ICU. I was called because she had been told there was nothing more that could be done for her and she was going to die. It just shows you that it’s not always possible to predict what will happen. Some patients do defy the odds and this woman fell into that category.

This patient amazes me and is a testament to my belief that the human spirit can endure much given the right kind of support. When I first me her she was petrified she was going to die. She was not overly religious but was desperately wanting to cling on to something. She asked me to pray with her. What I ended up doing was an Iona healing anointing which she seemed to take great comfort from. As she physically plateaued and hung between that place of death and life, she emotionally deteriorated and sank into despair and depression. Her world shrunk to the size of her bed. She became obsessed with the times that her drugs were due and what doses she was being given. She had lost any perspective on the outside world. She was extremely demanding of the medical staff and they were at a loss as to how to help her. She was on a ventilator for a long time so communication was difficult, but not impossible. What was  important was that neither side got frustrated in the difficult communication process. As she physically got stronger, her anxiety levels increased. She was afraid of her fragility and that she would end up going backwards.

When she was moved out of ICU and into an ordinary ward her depression was at its height. I started visiting her on a daily basis and every day I would take a positive thought with me, which I would print and stick up on the wall which she spent so much time staring at. Part of her problem was that she was an elegant woman, who had a good job and was always immaculately presented. Because of her illness she no longer had a working bowel and had been fitted with a bag, which unfortunately made awful noises. Due to her not being able to maintain any nutrition her hair fell out. Now she was so physically debilitated that instead of getting up and going to work everyday and being in control of her life, she couldn’t even get out of bed or wash herself. No wonder she was depressed!

After a year of being in the hospital she was transferred to a specialist unit, from which she eventually went home.

I got to know her quite well during that year and admired the way she struggled to make herself eat. I watched and encouraged her as she set goals of sitting up and then getting out of bed and then staying out of bed. Sometimes it was a question of 1 step forward and 2 steps backwards. To me what was important was that I continued to journey with her no matter what direction she was going in.

After she left I had a few updates from the nurses about how she was doing at the other hospital but eventually there was no news.

When I saw her back in our hospital I was keen to see how she was after such a gap. She was remarkable. She had adjusted her life to live within the boundaries she now occupied. She knew she would never work again and would not be able to do long haul travel but that didn’t mean she had nothing to live for. It was great to renew our acquaintance and see how far she had come. 

I fed this back to her and said how well I thought she had done. She was much more serene and philosophical. She told me that she wanted me to do her funeral and that she had told her brother what she wanted. It seems that not even the fear of death had kept its hold over her. Even though she was still enduring horrible physical illnesses, emotionally she was on an even keel. She was back with us for a few months before she went back to the specialist unit and then back home.

It’s stories like this that keep me going in the face of such adversity.