Previous Challenge Entry (Level 3 - Advanced)
Topic: PATIENT (11/25/21)
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TITLE: Does This Make Me a Horrible Person? | Previous Challenge Entry
By Tammy Ortung
12/02/21 -
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“With the level of care you’ll need over the next few months, we feel it would be best if you went into a rehab center,” the doctor says.
“But we can’t afford long-term treatment,” Sandy says. “We have exhausted all his Medicare benefits and have nothing left in savings.”
“That’s okay,” Doug interjects. “Sandy can take care of me. We’ve managed just fine so far.” One doctor glances at Sandy’s haggard expression. She looks as if she hasn’t slept in months. Her moist eyes scream in protest, but she remains silent.
“I don’t think I can do it anymore,” she says to the doctors after they all leave her husband's room. “I’m exhausted. Some mornings I wake up and look over to his side of the bed, hoping he’s gone peacefully in his sleep.” Sandy starts sobbing as she confides this last part. “I know this makes me a horrible person.”
In a later scene, Sandy is found unconscious in an empty waiting room. Medical personnel rush her to the ER and she is diagnosed with broken heart syndrome.
“I wonder if that’s a real condition,” my mom says, taking out her phone and Googling it. “I guess it is,” she says a short while later and proceeds to read the details from WebMD or some other Wikipedia-type page.
When we watch these medical drama series, I often wonder if they are based on actual situations. This one, in particular, seems so realistic that it gets me thinking.
A good friend of mine is currently caring for her mother who has terminal cancer. The family has moved her bed into the living room and someone needs to be with her 24/7. My friend and her sister are the only one’s strong enough to lift her mother when she needs to go to the bathroom, so they have a schedule that ensures one of them is there at all times.
The words of this fictional character seemed to mimic the feelings of my friend who confided similar sentiments just a few days earlier. “I don’t know how much longer I can keep this up,” she said. “I am so exhausted and I never get to see my kids.”
Over the years I have watched my mother care for my disabled sister who is so heavily medicated—to keep the voices at bay—that she vacillates between sleeping all day to talking incessantly.
“Is it okay if I take my bath tomorrow?” she asks with slurred words that make her difficult to understand.
“What?” mom says.
“Can I take my bath tomorrow?”
“What? I don’t understand what you’re saying, you need to speak slower.”
“What? What? What?”
On and on it goes. It doesn’t help that mom probably needs hearing aids. These frustrated interactions are almost laughable, but they're not. Some days, mom is so exhausted that she has absolutely no patience.
If we haven’t already experienced situations like these, we probably will someday. Maybe we have, but on a much smaller scale, like when our kids got the flu. Those times were difficult, but short lived, so we handled them easily. Yet we probably resonate with these caregivers more than we’d care to admit.
I am struck by how closely the two definitions of the word “patient” relate to each other. In these situations, each caregiver had trouble being patient (bearing trials calmly) as they tended to their patient (the person undergoing medical treatment). And I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard, “Don’t you know, you should never pray for patience.” And yet, aren’t we supposed to strive to live out the fruit of the Spirit? “But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control…” (Gal 5:22 NLT) The truth is, whether the patient or the caregiver, many people lose patience. I am guilty as well.
Trying to be patient without God is a fantasy—a delusion. Only when we realize this and lean on the Father, in whom nothing is impossible, will we ever be able to selflessly serve those patients God places in our lives. “Lord, I give me to you, all that I am, your love’s enough to change me…”
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You chose an interesting subject to write on... a good idea for a feature article in the right magazine! Maybe more research to inform us a little more...interesting!