THE JOYS OF GIVING AWAY PEANUT BUTTER COOKIES
Posted: May 19, 2014 | Author: mrshate | Filed under: Healthcare | Tags: aging, cookies, death, eldery, Georgia, healthcare, hospital, musings, old age, patient care, Southern, thoughts, writing | 4 Commentswhat do you do if you’re a 95 year-old man
living with your daughter?
why, you cook her supper two nights a week!!
***
so, when you’re in the hospital for therapy
and you’re wanting to do something fun
making peanut butter cookies sounds like
your kind of therapy
***
Mr. 95-Year-Old had a busy afternoon
mixing and shaping and baking
the perfectly perfect pretty peanutty pleasures
but his real pleasure came when we decided to wheelchair ride
up and down
over and through
all over the hospital
plate of cookies in his lap
offering to one and all employees
“would you like a cookie? they’re just out of the oven”
***
when all the cookies were gone, he said
this has been the best day
it has been so much fun
do you think we missed anybody?
I want to make sure we didn’t leave anybody out
***
the wistful glimmer in those faded eyes
as he worried over not leaving anyone out
stays in my memory still
***
it is more blessed to give than to receive
*****
It’s been some years now since I cared for this patient, but I remember how agog I was when he told me he cooked a full supper for his daughter two nights a week. When I questioned him as to the menu, he reeled off “meatloaf, mashed potatoes, butterbeans, cornbread” and such as that. And usually a dessert!!
As I sat there on that first visit in his room and chit-chatted with this most pleasant man, I reflected on the blessings I received out of getting to know my patients. You stare at them and listen to them and you realize that perhaps you are looking at your own self some fifty years in the future. There is nothing like healthcare to make one realize the brevity, beauty, and sadness in life. All that’s wonderful and horrible in life is right there in front of you.
The postscript to this little story is this. Within just a week, the patient’s body systems started failing, and he died. The peanut butter cookie day was one of his last good days, and I’m thankful that he got so much pleasure out of something that we younger and healthier people might take for granted…baking cookies and sharing them with others.
And let’s don’t take our youth and health for granted, either.
I JUST WANTED SOMEBODY TO LISTEN
Posted: March 19, 2014 | Author: mrshate | Filed under: Healthcare, Hospital, Patients | Tags: agape love, elderly, fear of death, healthcare, listening, lonely, occupational therapy, patient care, physical therapy | 8 Commentsa night janitor with a fifth-grade education, late sixties, living alone
children scattered
but a devoted sister nearby
when he was young and strong, he never imagined that one day it would take him
two hours
to crawl across the floor to reach the phone to call the ambulance
the patient arrived at the hospital for swingbed therapy very weak after that piteous crawl and the grueling illness that followed
with tired tears oozing from closed eyes he repeated for the third time in two days his crawling story
he remembered the horrors of being alone and crawling and sick with fears of
A SOLITARY DEATH
on that floor
his listener was touched and leaned over his bed and patted and kissed him, saying
“you don’t need to worry any more…you’re here and safe and warm
and
people are all around you and we’ll take care of you”
the patient cried a little more
and said…
thank you
I just wanted somebody to listen
I was scared I was going to die alone
the patient and his sister came back to visit after his discharge
he was so, so happy
strong and walking
smiling from ear to ear
in the presence of those who had comforted him and encouraged him
and
listened to him
a brother and sister who started out young together
and then
grew old together
*****
This experience with this patient crystallized for me the importance and value of patient and empathetic listening in the healthcare setting (and also, of course, in our lives away from our work environment). Because the patient appreciated the time taken with and care shown to him, he did indeed feel safe and trusted me, and his therapy progressed in its own time as a result of the agape love we shared.
Mrs. Hate might expound in her “diatribes” how hard it is for healthcare workers to attain the extra time many patients, especially the elderly or lonely ones (and aren’t elderly people often the most lonely?), need and deserve. She, however, was most fortunate and blessed in that her particular job allowed her many opportunities to spend extra time with those she cared for. For that, Mrs. Hate is eternally grateful.
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