On call

• Busy call shift last night. I was at the hospital until 4am (having started at 8am the previous day). But I was delighted that when I got home to my cozy bed I had remembered to bring my Mrs. Roper-like eye mask and ear plugs to guarantee a good nights sleep (given there’s a skylight above my bed here) and prevent me from hearing my roommates starting their day. Even I was surprised when I didn’t wake up til 10:30am! A record for me. Usually 5:30 or 6:30am is my wake up time.
• Sadly we were so late because there were a lot of sick people in the hospital yesterday. Really sick. One with kidney failure who chose to pass on dialysis and a temporary pacemaker so we weren’t sure she was going to make it through the night. She did but not before we had some palliative care type conversations with the family. I do love those moments. Especially when you have the opportunity to say a few kind words to make the family feel better about a situation. Like a daughter who had likely been a great caregiver but was blaming herself for her mom’s decline in health which was really just the natural progression of her illness. What do I know but that there was obviously a tremendous amount of love there and so I felt honoured that I could reassure her that it was the natural progression of illness that was at work and that no doubt she had provided wonderful care for her mom. Words that could be left unsaid but, in that moment, may provide some small amount of peace to her during a day filled with sadness or the days ahead when she reflects on that time. That’s one of the things that I love about palliative care – the focus on communication. No doubt it will at times be the bane of my existence too. That is, when the right words don’t seem to find themselves on my lips at the right moment. Or even worse, the wrong ones do. Although, I hope to learn from observing other people`s mistakes (as well as my own) so that I don`t have to do it all myself.