HW 21 - Expert #1

Insights & experiences shared by the guest speaker:

1. Beth's husband Erik was resistant to seeing a doctor at first. She said that she thought this was because he was a man.

2. It was 2 years before he saw a doctor, due partly to his initial resistance, and partly to paperwork problems that made it hard for them to get health insurance right away.

3. When they finally saw a doctor, they were treated very well, even though he was on government health insurance.

4. However, she said she had to really stand up for them, and make sure that he got everything he needed, because the doctors aren't going to remember - they see dozens of people every day.

5. For the months and months beforehand, they never really talked about him dying - the word death wasn't really mentioned.

6. He was slowly starting to fade away - he lost weight, became more and more tired, needed more help. However, Beth chose to personally take care of him as opposed to putting him in a hospice - she didn't like that death was dealt with in that way, where people are isolated from the rest of the world.

7. The last 10 days, Beth and Evan were with Erik all the time. They both talked about this the most, mentioning all the things they had to do for him - getting him water, for his hands, trying to make him more comfortable.

8. Beth said it was about 2 or 3 in the morning, and she was with Erik, and she felt the room was more still, more quiet - she realized his heart had stopped beating. She went and got Evan so that he could see Erik before he was taken away.

9. Afterward, they felt drained.

Connecting her insights/experience to my insights/experience:

Beth mentioned that she didn't want Erik to be in a hospice, that she wanted him to be at home. This gave me a different perspective on hospices (See HW 17 ). I had always known that they were somewhere to go when you knew you were going to die, and that the people who went to them felt that it was a good choice. I sort of thought they were a place people went because they wanted, and that the idea of them, while not exactly nice, was comforting: that there was this place people could go where everyone would make sure they were comfortable. However, when she brought it up, I thought about it some more, and the idea seemed absurd - why would anyone want to die in a fluorescent light lit hospital, instead of their own comfortable home?

When she talked about how she was with Erik and she realized he was dead, it reminded me of my dad telling me a story of when he was working at the hospice. He was attending to a man who wanted him to put lotion on his hands. So he did, and the guy closed his eyes and seemed to fall into a half sleep. After a while, my dad realized that the man's hands felt cold - too cold. It seemed odd that both Beth and my dad had watched someone die, but the factors surrounding it were extremely different - one person was a husband, one was a stranger. One was at home surrounded by family, one was at a hospice with no one he really knew. But both Beth and my dad remembered the exact moment of realization of what happened, the same thing about the room being still.

Further thoughts - ideas or questions Beth's presentation sparked:

Beth talked about how after Erik died, she mainly remembered the good things about him, but she didn't forget the less nice things. I liked that she said that, because I feel that too often, people don't remember the bad things. Maybe it depends on how much you know them. Or maybe things just look better in perspective, when you can look over your entire time knowing someone, and realize that altogether, there were more good things then bad things. She also talked about the last days and months with him, and how that was so good, to have that time with him. This struck me as very beautiful for some reason, maybe because there was closure, and the whole thing ended well.

It made me realize that that would be the ideal way of this happening - plenty of time with them, lots of time to say everything you want to, nothing cut short. It would be my nightmare for it to be a surprise - like if it was a car accident. What if the last thing you say isn't nice? Or if it's ordinary - "Don't forget to buy milk!" I could never live with that.