The ups and downs of chaplaincy at Christmas

Time was marching by. I was beginning to feel part of the institution. I was also feeling more confident in what I was doing. It had only taken 18 months!

Christmas was rapidly approaching. I was able to get some children from our local primary school to come and sing. What they didn’t know was the local football team were coming to the hospital the same day. After the children had finished singing around the Christmas tree and in our main reception areas the Chief Exec said a few words. It was lovely to see so many smiling faces both patients and staff but what was really fantastic was to see the faces of the children when the football players turned up. Their little faces just lit up. This was portrayed in the photographs that went out in the local papers. That day, being a chaplain had a real feel good factor.

On Christmas Day I was called out to a woman on CCU (Coronary Care Unit). She was a regular member of church, although too ill to get there most of the time due to her heart failure. She wanted to receive communion. As I gave her communion I said the words “The body of Christ keep you in everlasting life” and I realised that this woman would soon be experiencing that “Everlasting life” It was a very powerful and moving moment for me. As I had learnt the year before, heart failure patients die in a different way. This woman was very aware of her impending death and was approaching it with her eyes well and truly open. I hope when my time comes I can be a serene as she was. She died peacefully a few days later.

On Boxing Day I was called to NICU. A baby had been born at 26 weeks and there was no hope for him. The family wanted me to baptise him, which I did. The family were from Eastern Europe and I got the impression they may have been Roman Catholic. I tried to check this out but the parents were quite reticent about giving any information. They were the same when it came to the funeral visit and the subsequent funeral. It left me wondering whether they were worried about paying for things. We do not charge for baby funerals at all but maybe that was a fear for them. I hope whatever their fear was it didn’t paralyse them from grieving for their much loved son. Sometimes it is just impossible to get to the bottom of things and they have to be left unresolved in me but handed over to God.

Recognising when you are stressed

One of the places I wander through from time to time is the children’s wards. Doing this I got to know some of the staff well enough to have a bit of a natter with. I bumped into one of them in A&E. She looked really poorly. I said I’d find her when she was on the ward. I supported her and the family through the next few months. She was diagnosed with cancer and died quite quickly.

The ward staff decided to hold a staff memorial and asked me if I would do it. We planned it and chose some appropriate pieces of music that the ward manager downloaded onto a CD for me. On the day of the service I was quite flustered. I was finding it hard jiggling everything as the only full time chaplain. I had been called out in the night and was dog tired. I was gathering everything I needed and couldn’t find the CD. I looked everywhere and was beginning to panic. In the end with 5 minutes to spare I had to admit defeat. I grabbed some of my own personal CD’s that I keep in the office and rushed over to the venue. When I arrived the room was packed. Her family were there as was the Chief Exec and many senior members of staff. I had to own up that I had lost the CD. I went through the CD’s I had and got everyone present to pick some other songs that reminded them of the staff member who had died. As we went through the service I talked about what songs had been chosen and why then asked why the new song had been chosen and what memories it evoked.

The service went very well. Afterwards the Chief Exec said to me that I was very calm and that she would have been very stressed by the situation. I told her that I was doing a good swan impression. Serene and calm on the surface but underneath paddling like mad. She said I pulled it off. I was really grateful for that feedback because I was really disappointed in myself for losing the CD.

When I got back to the office I decided to play a relaxing CD and chill out a bit. As I opened my CD player there was the missing CD! Seeing it there made me realise how stressed I was at trying to meet the demands of the service. I made a mental note to see my supervisor more often and use any support structures around me. It’s very easy to put the demands of the service ahead of your own support. I had cancelled some support sessions late in the day because I’d been dealing with tricky situations. If I left this happen too often I would end up paying the price.

Explaining death to children

Later that day, after seeing that that very ill patient married, I was called to a very sad situation. A woman in her 30’s was dying from breast cancer. Her husband was at a loss at to what to say to his small children aged 4 and 6. The staff were equally upset as they had nursed this woman regularly.

I have built up some good resources and I gave a copy of the story Waterbugs and Dragonflies to the Dad and to some staff. It’s a lovely gentle story that illustrates a transition. Children learn well from stories.

Waterbugs and dragonflies - Doris Stickley

Down below the surface of a quiet pond lived a little colony of water bugs.  They were a happy colony, living far away from the sun.  For many months they were very busy, scurrying over the soft mud on the bottom of the pond.

They did notice that every once in a while one of their colony seemed to lose interest in going about with its friends.  Clinging to the stem of a pond lily, it gradually moved out of sight and was seen no more.  “Look!” said one of the water bugs to another.  “One of our colony is climbing up the lily stalk.  Where do you suppose she is going?”  Up, up, up it went slowly.  Even as they watched the water bug disappeared from sight.  Its friends waited and waited but it didn’t return.

“That’s funny!” said one water bug to another.  “Wasn’t she happy here?” asked a second water bug.  “Where do you suppose she went?” wondered a third.  No one had an answer.  They were greatly puzzled.  Finally one of the water bugs, a leader in the colony, gathered its friends together.  “I have an idea.  The next one of us who climbs up the lily stalk must promise to come back and tell us where he or she went and why.”  “We promise”, they said solemnly.

One spring day, not long after, the very water bug who had suggested the plan found himself climbing up the lily stalk.  Up, up, up he went.  Before he knew what was happening, he had broken through the surface of the water, and fallen onto the broad, green lily pad above.

When he awoke, he looked about with surprise.  He couldn’t believe what he saw.  A startling change had come to his old body.  His movement revealed four silver wings and a long tail.  Even as he struggled, he felt an impulse to move his wings.  The warmth of the sun soon dried the moisture from his new body.  He moved his wings again and suddenly found himself up above the water.  He had become a dragonfly.

Swooping and dipping in great curves, he flew through the air.  He felt exhilarated in the new atmosphere.  By and by, the new dragonfly lighted happily on a lily pad to rest.  Then it was that he chanced to look below to the bottom of the pond.  Why, he was right above his old friends, the water bugs!  There they were, scurrying about, just as he had been doing some time before.

Then the dragonfly remembered the promise:  “The next one of us who climbs up the lily stalk will come back and tell where he or she went and why.”  Without thinking the dragonfly darted down.  Suddenly he hit the surface of the water and bounced away.  Now that he was a dragonfly, he could no longer go into the water.

“I can’t return!” he said in dismay.  “At least I tried, but I can’t keep my promise.  Even if I could go back, not one of the water bugs would know me in my new body.  I guess I’ll just have to wait until they become dragonflies too.  Then they’ll understand what happened to me, and where I went.  And the dragonfly winged off happily into its wonderful new world of sun and air.

A wedding with a difference

Sometimes the role of a chaplain is extremely varied. I got quite involved with a young couple. The man was being treated for cancer. Due to his lowered immunity he had developed pneumonia and was in ICU on a ventilator. He gradually improved and after about three weeks came off the ventilator. When he could communicate he asked me if I could help him get married. There are very strict rules about marriage in these circumstances as I was to find out. In order for a special licence to be granted a doctor has to say there is no chance of recovery. The patient’s consultant was not prepared to say this, as she was hopeful of a positive prognosis. So the next step was to get the registrar to come to the hospital. Again the consultant wasn’t prepared to sign the form. Not to be deterred we then looked at the possibility of getting the couple to the Register Office.

The original idea was that I would take the patient round in a wheelchair to the Register Office to do the necessary paperwork. This all took ages to sort out and in the meantime the patient was discharged. I was contacted by the couple who told me there was till no way of getting to the office as the patient was still too weak and needed to be carried down a couple of flights of stairs. They had no friends who were able to help out in this way.

I used to work for St John Ambulance so I contacted a mate of mine to see if she could get me an ambulance and crew. Fortunately she was able to help out and they went for the appointment and a date was set.

On the morning of the wedding I was contacted by the couple again, to say they had forgotten to arrange any transport and he was still too weak to walk down the stairs. Trying to get an ambulance and a crew at an hours notice is nearly an impossible task on a busy week day. Fortunately I work with some nice people and I was able to get the patient transport team who usually brought the man to his hospital appointments to help out. I rushed off to the florist and got some ribbon and a big bow for the front of the ambulance.

It was a joy to see them married and I nearly cried when the man made the huge effort of standing to kiss his wife after the ceremony. It’s great that I have happy times in my work and that it’s not all doom and gloom.

Living with hope in the shadow of adversity

Another family that I picked up in my wanderings around ICU were the relatives of a very handsome 25 year old. As I got to know them they gradually talked to me about the horrible situation they were in. The young man had been out with his girlfriend and was having a nice meal in a restaurant. Suddenly he just collapsed into the table. When the emergency services arrived they were able to resuscitate him and now the family were waiting to find out why this young fit man’s heart suddenly stopped beating and also they were waiting to know when he would wake up.

Unfortunately the news wasn’t good when it came. It seems this patient had a hereditary heart defect and that’s why his heart stopped. If detected something could have been done. This patient didn’t know his dad so there was no family history to make him suspicious. His mum had died from cancer when he was a teenager and his aunt had looked after him since then. When his heart suddenly stopped that night in the restaurant his brain had been starved of oxygen and this had caused irreversible brain damage. He was now going to be in a persistent vegetative state for the rest of his life.

My heart went out to this family. They continued to lovingly surround him with visitors that massaged his feet and groomed him. They always had music going and read to him and chattered about all sorts of things. Every now and then I would find one of them crying in the corridor and I would spend some time with them.

I was left wondering what would have happened if someone had known how to do CPR in that restaurant. Would the outcome have been different? As I used to work for St John Ambulance and taught CPR I guess I’ve always known the importance of that skill. This poor family were also left with these questions and his girlfriend, who was with him that night, carried the most guilt.

Coincidently I was reading a book at the time about a mum who looked after her son after he had an awful brain injury while he was abroad on his gap year. It was a powerful story of living with hope in the face of adversity. The day they moved the patient to a specialist hospital I left the book for the family with a message of hope inscribed in the front. The essence of the Christian message is about hope and light. No one really knows what happens when a person remains trapped in their own bodies. Yet another situation and family that I had to give into God’s loving care.

Men are from Mars & women are from Venus

At one point my senior colleague ended up unexpectedly off for a couple of months. I had to learn to balance the needs of the hospital against my own limited resources. I started to build up good contacts with local clergy so that they could cover and enable me to take some days off.

One Sunday afternoon I was called by ICU. I’d been there on my rounds earlier in the day and knew there was a very sick patient on the unit so I wasn’t surprised. The man was late 40’s and an alcoholic. He had lots of family around. They had been told it could go either way. I find it much more difficult in those circumstances. It’s easier from my point of view if things are clear cut and I can prepare the family for the impending death.

I spent some time with the family in the relatives room. They had a mixture of religious and spiritual beliefs. Some were obviously uncomfortable by my presence. I offered them a few suggestions of what they might like as no-one was forthcoming about what they wanted me to do. I really encouraged them to express whatever they needed to, to the patient in their own way and I emphasised that I wasn’t there to dictate. I left them with space to discuss amongst themselves what they wanted.

I went back to the nurses station and was chatting to the nurse in charge. She told me that they had just admitted a patient in very bizarre circumstances. The apparent story was that the man, newly married of four months, had got up from the dinner table and said to his wife he needed the loo. When he didn’t come back she went to the bathroom and found him hanging. Even though he was found quite quickly he had done enormous damage and was brain dead. Both the ward sister and I were completely flummoxed by how he could have done something like that in that way. A male SHO was also sitting at the desk and he said he could understand how someone could snap in an instant and do something like that. The ward sister and I decided that men really are from Mars while women are from Venus.

Suddenly alarms started to ring and the patient I had been called to see arrested. I watched as they pumped up and down on his chest. I was very aware that his family were outside. Now, with the experience I have, I wouldn’t hesitate to get involved and talk to the medics and bring the family in. That day, with only just over a years experience I felt out of my depth. A nurse went out to the family and I followed. She told them the seriousness of the situation. The man’s brother went in. I stood amongst the family in the corridor outside. I had the patient’s daughters either side of me pleading for reassurance. I asked them if they wanted me to pray. They all jumped at this. I gulped took a deep breath and hoped that I could pray a meaningful prayer. I then suggested that the daughters went in. I stood at the foot of the bed with the daughters still on either side of me. I put my arms around them. The medics were still trying to resuscitate the patient. They were beginning to look at each other and I knew there was no hope. The medic said “Shall we stop?” The girls screamed and said they had to continue. They did continue and I talked to these young women about letting go and saying goodbye to their Dad. I talked about the suffering he had endured due to his illness and that he wouldn’t be suffering anymore. I could feel the shift in their body language as they slumped more into me. I nodded at the staff and they said again “Shall we stop?” This time there were no objections, just lots of tears. The medics stepped back and I encouraged the family to say what they needed to as hearing was the last thing to go. After a while they went outside. I sat with them and this time they said they wanted to do a goodbye ritual. We waited till the medics had tidied the patient up and then everyone came back in and participated in anointing their brother, father, brother-in-law in their own way and saying their own thing. I felt pleased that despite the initial uncomfortableness at my presence, a barrier seemed to have been broken down. I was with that family for a total of five hours. I hope that in a small way I made a difference.

After the family left I went back in and sat with the ward Sister. We were both exhausted. It was her last shift for a while as she was going on maternity leave. She told me that the family of the other man, who had hung himself wouldn’t give consent for his organs to be used. We both knew that the families wishes had to be respected but we both felt it was such a waste. The man had died in an awful way but his death could have brought life to many others. In the years to come this may have brought comfort to his family. Unfortunately we’ll never know that one and we were all left feeling the futility of it all. What a day!

"Oh you're a woman"

Following feedback from a follower I have changed the template. I hope this makes it easier on the eyes. Do let me know if there are any problems.

It seems I had a knack as a hospital chaplain of challenging stereotypes. Another man that wouldn’t ordinarily be paired with me came into my work life at this time. I was bleeped early in the evening. When I arrived the man said "Oh you are a woman" I complimented him on his powers of observation with a twinkle in my. I offered to find him a male priest if he preferred. I think because I was a little bit cheeky he decided to stick with me.

He was a real mans man. He was ex navy and had done some espionage work. He was fairly traditional in his views and there he was confronted by this pro woman woman. He wife had had several strokes and he had been her main carer for a number of years. He was very gentle with her and did all her care. It was wonderful to see such love and devotion.

He chatted to me about life in the navy and all the other clerics he had ever known. He told me that he used to go to church but all the places round him were “happy clappy” I asked him if he wanted me to find him a more traditional church. He was really pleased with this offer. I put him in contact with the local church and got the vicar to go round. He liked what he saw and started going to the church.

Everytime he was in the hospital he would bleep me and say "It's the voice fancy a hot chocolate?" He always insisted on buying the coffee and sitting me down before him and all that old fashioned stuff but we had some great conversations.

I hope he finds all that helpful when his wife finally dies. He and his wife are often around the hospital due to his wife’s many admissions. At these times he talks to me about how he’ll never forgive God if anything ever happens to his wife. I try to talk to him about death coming to all of us and that he and his wife have more life behind them than in front of them. He seems to be in complete denial about this though and won’t face his wife’s death. As they are in their mid 80’s I guess he is going to have to face it one day in the not too distant future, unless of course he goes first.