On Friday we had the opportunity to visit with a Palliative patient in their home. We spent some time hearing their story, and asking questions. Afterwards, we were encouraged to right a short reflection on the experience and how it impacted us. I’ve decided to share what I wrote here, as a storage place for that reflection, and as a means to tell other people about the experience.
Before our visit with Mr. C, my beliefs and expectations of Palliative care had already been challenged in the classroom. Our instructor had illustrated the distinction between curing and healing, and addressed the concept of a good death. These were new ideas personally, but ones that resonated with my desire to see the person behind the patient, and to at least acknowledge all aspects of their well-being, not just the physical. When speaking with Mr. C, many of these learning points from the classroom were enlivened by his individual story.
In particular, one aspect of Mr. C’s story that surprised me was the comfort he seemed to have with talking about his own death. I had expected him to be more reserved, either because of personal difficulty with the topic, or because he would not want to burden us with such weighty, personal matters. But to Mr. C, it seemed that they were neither weighty nor personal. He talked about his expectations for death with language and an attitude that normalized the event.
Mr. C told us about his work as manager of a golf course. He had spent a considerable segment of his life outdoors, and felt a distinct attachment to the natural world. He described how, over many years, he had observed life, death, and changing seasons in nature around him. He explained that he saw his death as a natural progression – the expected, and rightful last consequence of leading a human life. I was impacted by the normalizing effect that this philosophy had on my own understanding of death.
One benefit of this normalization, I found, was that it “freed us up” to consider the more practical aspects of Mr. C’s health. With much of the psychological baggage removed from our perception death, there was more room for the consideration of life. I was reminded of another distinction that our instructor had made: that Palliative care is not caring for someone who is dying, but rather caring for someone who is living with a disease that they will likely die from. We spent most of the remaining conversation discussing Mr. C’s hopes, expectations, and concerns for living.
I’m grateful to Mr. C for sharing his story with us, and for contributing to the foundation of awareness we are receiving in this Palliative care unit. I expect that I will encounter patients who have different perspectives on death, some considerably less normalizing than Mr. C’s. No doubt, I will be challenged by that, but I’m fortunate to have gained an insight into one possible understanding of death, and one person’s approach to living with that understanding.
