Pain relief key to palliative care
A year ago, I mentioned that I had just heard the term palliative care. Since then, I’ve learned more about it. The word “palliative” comes from Middle English meaning “to cloak or conceal.” As defined by the World Health Organization, it is “the active total care of patients whose disease is not responsive to curative treatment. Care is given to those in pain, alleviating physical, emotional and spiritual suffering while opening paths of peaceful hope.”
Most of us are familiar with the work of Hospice but not as many know that the Visiting Nursing Association has been offering this care for more than 60 years. To be eligible for palliative care, patients must have life-limiting conditions which are progressively worsening or not responding to curative treatment.
For further information, you may contact Visiting Nurses Association, Hospice, or the website for City of Hope, www.cityofhope.org/prc.
Nursing home memories
Nursing homes are often considered the place for patients not expected to recover, but it often is not a happy solution for either. The patient may feel abandoned or the family may feel guilty about placing their loved ones there. I probably have a different view of nursing homes than many people because I lived on the third floor of one for three years beginning in 1947, when I was a freshman in high school.
My father had left my mother, me and my younger sister, Marilyn, and younger brother, Don. With the aid of friends, my mother was able to buy a large, three-story residence, which had been remodeled into a nursing home. There was a finished apartment on the third floor and that’s where we lived, taking our meals in the kitchen where cooks prepared meals for the approximately 30 patients.
My mother always made a fuss over holidays with special foods and decorations, including the traditional outdoor barbecue on the Fourth of July. Sometimes my sister and I entertained the patients with little skits or readings. One of our “tasks” was to take the flowers from the funeral when one of the patients died and rearrange them in different vases so they didn’t look funereal – very difficult to do with gladiola.
The patients were quite different in personality and demeanor. My husband used to say that “Age makes bloom youth’s incipient madness” and that was truly reflected in the patients I knew. Whatever they had been earlier in life was magnified with age. Although most patients were bedridden, some were ambulatory, including one elderly man who dressed in a suit every morning and, feeling that he was the owner of the house, kept “firing” my mother and locking the front door.
As I started dating, there were challenges. Whenever I dressed up for a date, some of the patients wanted to see both my date and my outfit. Since there were usually four beds in a room, that took some time, but the patients obviously enjoyed it. And it actually turned out to be a kind of “litmus” test for the boys I dated. Most of them felt it was pretty spooky for me to be living there, and one even told the guests at the party later that night what a weird place my home had turned out to be. But one of the sweetest boys had a great time and asked if we shouldn’t go to more rooms before leaving for the party. He turned out to be a prince and my steady date my senior year.
I have always felt that the time my siblings and I spent in the nursing home bonded us and may be the reason we are still so close and have never had an argument all these years. And I can always make myself smile by picturing my mother standing patiently in the foyer while one of her patients explained, “Kathryn, you’re a wonderful person but I just have to let you go. I’ll unlock the front door for you!” She must have heard that a hundred times, but she always smiled, agreed and asked if she could go upstairs and get a few things. The next day it would happen all over again. Not many girls had that happen in their living rooms. I still feel special.
Worthy of recognition
At the International Women’s Day Celebration last Thursday, three local women were honored with the Bella Abzug Award: Lindy Cater, Fran Hammond and County Commissioner Bonnie Mager.
The award was named after Bella Abzug because of her lifetime of work for women and the environment. It shows Abzug in one of her trademark hats. In her words, “I began wearing hats because it helped me to establish my professional identity. Before that, whenever I was at a meeting, someone would ask me to get coffee.”
My favorite quote by Abzug is: “Women have been trained to speak softly and carry a lipstick. Those days are gone forever.”
Congratulations to these outstanding women, Lindy, Fran and Bonnie.
A lesson
At a very upscale dinner last week, the guests feasted on lobster, steak, ribs, and crab – except for one guest who ordered tofu. We all teased her unmercifully and our disdain for tofu was obvious. We were soon put in our place when the tofu turned out to be the most elaborate presentation and so delicious that my friend didn’t answer our teasing but merely enjoyed her meal down to the last tiny bite! It reminded me that “the proof of the pudding is in the eating.”