Food for thought: Hospice

No one really wants to talk about the end of life or hospice. I think that there's a lot more to hospice, and there's a lot of misconceptions out there. I know that I did, and I am supposed to be the one explaining this to people. I had an opportunity to shadow a hospice nurse when I was on outpatient medicine, and I wrote a reflection that I wanted to share.


My perception of hospice is summed up my friend’s response when I told her that I spent two days in hospice care, “Oh, um…, that must be sad.” As someone from a background where it is valued not to tell the patient their real prognosis, I have never talked about hospice or death even before my grandma died last year. I wondered how hospice could help people in their last days and not be something morbid. 

The first thing that I learned was that hospice is designed to help people to go through the last days of their life. The goal is never to promote “giving up” or even suggest that these doctors and nurses have given up on these patients. Rather, it is helping family and the patient to go through the last days with dignity. One of the hospice nurses gave me a very good article called “Letting Go” by Atul Gawande that summed what I experienced. He said that with the technologies we have, we can really lose the sense of what is really important in the last days for the patients. Although death is certain, but the time at which it happens is not. He raised the question of would the patient want to pass away having everything (meaning invasive things) done to him/her to prolong their life, but not giving him/her the chance to say his/her last words or make resolutions? Putting dying in this perspective, I think that it would be more humane to let people make those resolutions, give their last words, and have someone guide their loved ones through the inevitable grieving process. As my hospice nurse said, death is never good, but they are here to make the dying process not as traumatic as it would otherwise be. 

Let me give an example, for one of the families that we visited, the wife was just so grateful that the nurse came by to see the patient. She wanted the best care for her husband, but felt inadequate in her care for him. The man had been a respected fireman in his life. He was so organized and conscious of his image that he would feel embarrassed when we burped his ostomy bag (a bag to collect stool when someone has to have their bowels taken out). We heard that he used to pack his ostomy contents in diapers and seal them in quart-size zip-lock bags just so that it would not bother others. He had a meticulous calendar by which he recorded all the family birthdays, and his own medication regimen. His medications were packed away neatly in a lunch bag, and his wife reports that he gave specific instructions of “don’t mess it up” even if he could not manage his medications anymore. Whenever he was awake, he would joke with us, and I could see that he never lost his spunk. After all, we were in his house. Although he was a patient, he was also a man with pride, and you could tell that he would never let that go. 

But the truth of the fact that he was a man wasting away from the cancer that mercilessly struck him. He had a loving family that wanted the best for him. I witness how the nurse took time not only to help the patient to stay mentally alert and out of terrible pain, but also she also took the time to talk and comfort the family. The wife received much support in terms of learning and building up her confidence to care for her husband. She began to know what to expect, so that she would not be so distraught. She had been sleep deprived trying to stay up during the nights because she didn’t want to miss his last moment. But with the comfort of the nurse, she accepted overnight nursing help and was reassured that the best way is for her to be mentally and physically ready when that time comes.  

What I took away from the experience was that this man would not have wanted to be tied to tubes inside an intensive care unit, and hospice provided him with care that allowed him to be where he was the most comfortable, in his house where he is still its owner. Also, hospice care also helped his wife and family to face what is about to come. It is not forcing that reality on these people, but it is helping them to come to terms and accept what is going on now and cherish the time that they have. Even research has shown that people in hospice care actually lived a few months longer than those who underwent intensive and invasive treatments. The alternative would be much more devastating given the prognosis of this man and his disease. 

Yet, as a society, we resist this type of care in the belief that fighting for life with all that we have is the best. I think that the next steps in my future career is to help people to see that hospice is not a “waiting for death” experience, but too see it as a valuable time that we cannot lose to give people good and dignified care. 

Works Cited

Gawande, Atul. “Letting Go.” The New Yorker. August 2, 2010: 36-49. Print.

Green onion pancakes

Right before my roommates and I left our apartment for a few days of break, I decided that I would use up all of the perishable foods in the refrigerator. It turns out, the only perishable foods were a block of tofu, eggs, and a bunch of green onions. What can you make from that?

After some soul-searching on youtube land, I decided that I would make green onion pancakes accompanied by a soup of tofu, tomato and eggs. The green onion pancakes seem difficult to make because they required rolling out the dough to a nice and thin consistency and fold in oil as if I am making a French pastry. I remember eating excellent, flaky, light, and onion flavored pancakes bought from the street vendors when I was little, but now I was attempting to make it at home with youtube as my only help. But my roommate cheered me on by saying, “You can do it. I’ll eat whatever you make.” So off I went.

The video that I saw requires a working knowledge of Chinese and the ability to withstand a lot of enthusiastic Chinese chattering. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTZPDa0wiqQ

But you can watch this very similar version without everything I have described above. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OJbkqUvHxI

I can’t say that the whole process went effortlessly. I confess that I almost burnt down the house by leaving the pot on the stove with oil still in it. Unsure of what to do, I took the pot off and waited for the oil-lite fire to die down while frantically screaming my roommate’s name for help. After the fire died down, I used the “Abby Butcher” method of fanning smoke away from the fire alarm (which I learned as a freshman living on my own for the first time) to appease the ear-ringing sound.

I have completely ruined the pot, but my roommates were so kind that they simply laughed and thought that it was funny, given that I didn’t actually burn down the house. Then they told me that I should pour baking soda on a grease fire. So now I am going to research health and safety in kitchens during my leisure time.

Gardening adventures episode 1 - Inspirations

Spring is the time of life, and I surprised myself with my sudden intrigue with plants and keeping something alive.

It all started when one of my roommates was given the charge of keeping a plant named Henry George, whose species is still a mystery to my roommate and I, alive. It's a beautiful plant with long lush leaves and no stem. My roommate had been apprehensive about plant-sitting because her plants have always met a misfortune or two. But out of her love for our friend, she is determined to keep this one alive. A week or so into our charge, this poor plant began to die leaf by leaf. Unwilling to present a dead plant to our friend, my roommate geared up her efforts, bought new pots and soil, replanted the plant, and nursed it back to health.

Inspired, I began to think that I may give growing plants a try. To be honest, the only plant that I ever kept alive was a small generic house plant that a sister at AMC, a church in Maryland, had given me after I stayed with her. I had been proud that this little plant grew a little and didn't die in my dim apartment at Duke. When I brought it home over the summer for my mother, who has the greenest thumb I know, it literally doubled in size and gave off several new shoots. Flabbergasted, I decided that I had better leave that plant at home with my mom where it could grow happily ever after.

Now I am going to try to grow a plant again, with the thought that if my roommate can put in such efforts to keep Henry George alive, then I can keep something alive.

So off I went to various plant nurseries in search of a suitable plant that's not too expensive least I kill it in one go. My brother and I found a nursery right outside our neighborhood. I never knew how delightful it is! Besides the beds upon beds of plants they had, they also had a gift shoppe with glass decorations that looked like colorful rain drops and mushroom from Alice in Wonderland.

They also had an exhibition garden where you could pick herbs for free. One of the workers even invited us to try their freshly picked English peas that burst with sweetness in our mouths. I took the liberty to buy their freshly picked strawberries, which filled my car with a warm, sticky, and sweet aroma that I wish someone can make a car scent mimicking it.

Alas, I decided not to buy my plant from this nursery and chose, instead, to buy the basic sweet basil and rosemary from the farmer's market. But it was incredibly fun just snooping my nose around this nursery and that, and finally bought the plants that I will attempt to grow.

Until next time! Follow me through my adventures of growing a plant :-).

Welcome

Hello! It is about time to create another blog 1) to share my experiences with my friends and family who are far away; 2) just because it is fun. You wouldn't believe it, but I first found blogs to be fun after having to create a blog post on "La Semaine de Gout" for a French class in college (yes, I am a nerd).

Unlike my previous blogs that focused on my summer service experiences in Togo and Cheraw (which are really cool, and you should check them out on the side bar), I want this blog to be more free form to accommodate all sorts of adventures that I may encounter. Things to watch out for would be my awkward adventures with plants and planting, cooking up a storm or not, travels to places, random cool topics (something along the lines of La Semaine de Gout, or anything I find in NY Times), and just events in life. Alright, here I go!