Surrounded

• I think the best thing I've noticed about working in palliative care (which is exactly what I was hoping for) is how often you get to witness love. Over the last week and a bit, I've met families large and small who are filled to the brim with it. It's expressed in a variety of different ways - sometimes pleasant, sometimes not so much. Some families fuss over the details of their loved one's medications and feel the need to aggressively play defense against nurses and doctors who they forget are on the same team. Other families share their stories with you about years married (one couple I met this week have been married for 60 years, another for 50), numbers of children and grandchildren, their family member's role in the community and ultimately, how well loved they are. One woman showed me the pictures of her marriage in the hospice garden last year to the 'love of her life', and happened to be at hospice again this year during their anniversary which she told me 'made it perfect'. She is a beautiful woman who has an enormous amount of medication on board to keep her cancer pain in check, and yet she smiled when she told me about what a wonderful place the Victoria hospice is and rhymed off her top ten favorite things about hospice.
• Some people think palliative care must be grim, saying things like "Oh wow. That would be so hard. I could never do that work!". All I can figure is that they have no idea just how fulfilling this work is and how much it reminds you on a daily basis of exactly what's important in life. It is a special place.