Daily Archives: March 22, 2023
No victory
At coffee
At coffee
my team lead asks after
a patient my colleague is looking after
now PPS 10% apparently
being terminally sedated.
It feels like a victory
one small step in the right direction
how I used to wish
I had the orders
the tools
that the doctors out there had the education
and the confidence
to manage the terminally restless, agitated
end stage demented patient like that….
how my pleas
to cloak
the moral distress,
the emotional wreckage
the demented brain
falling apart
could no longer hold
as they were were haunted
tortured by their worst memories,
deepest fears,
PTSD…
and it all fell on deaf ears
and the violence persisted
patients who
punched us, kicked out, threw chairs, bit, spat,
called us every vile name they could think of.
The years of abuse
physical and verbal
we endured.
I am grieving today
and there is no victory
only a sadness
that creeps in
late in the afternoon
when I want to cry
sitting in front of the computer
before walking off
to do yet another IAR
on yet another cognitively impaired patient
this one drank
fell, found down with bloody attends laying around…
attempting to drink her demons away I suppose
estranged children
one who has a caregiver as he has FAS
no doubt
brought on by all she couldn’t control
long standing numbing agent of choice
against the emotional and mental pain
and I wonder later
what the demons are
but then
everyone is fighting something
trying hide
trying to work so damn hard
filling time
so they don’t have to think
about the burdens they carry.
I am well aware
I grieve
for so much abuse endured
it wasn’t my fault
and yet the anger simmers just below the surface,
spilling over
when something more tips the balance
of all I hold
and my mind wanders tonight in yoga
that pysch patient years back you saw
who said out loud she was a cum dumpster and the easiest lay
that you missed it
you missed asking
when and how she was raped
you missed all she hid still
cracked as she was.
Everyone has their burdens
everyone has their demons
and we all carry them differently
we all act out
we all work hard just to cover
and the cracks show eventually
at repeating points
when life’s additional stressors
push us
to the breaking point
and we shatter.
So today
was the glaring affirmation
that it does exist
the terminal sedating of the hellish wreckage
that military patient who was so damn violent
a threat to all when in LTC
I remember crying
after i lost it in STR, saying I couldn’t face it
after taking razors off him
all the times he stole packs of cigarettes off other LTC patients
bullied them
threatened them
threatening to harm his LTC care girlfriend’s best friend
another Frail COPD smoker
when she tried to stand up to him
all the care aides he nearly punched
all the times he swore
vicious and threatening
and I am betting all the anger
That came out
the lid he could no longer keep on the powder keg
i’d put money on that he was probably sexually abused
either a French Canadian priest out there
in the big family he grew up with – overwhelmed parents inattentive
Or somewhere up the ranks training in the military or was it airforce? Can’t recall, makes no difference anyway
probably joined up
to get out of the poor growing up…
and there is no victory here tonight
only sadness
and a slow, far too late
gratitude that someone on the hospital team
reached out and actually was granted a palliative consult
when I used to beg for them
and was never granted them for patients when I needed them most
so tonight
I am so very tired
and filled with sadness