One of the biggest frustrations working in hospice is the caregiver who will not listen to your advice. They have not yet come to terms with the situation. It is heartbreaking to watch someone pass away and to have all the tools to help them, only to get pushed aside or shut down by someone who just isn’t ready to get on board with the program. There comes a time when all you can do is watch someone suffer. It is gut wrenching. All your pleading and teaching will not change the situation. You can have long talks, leave reading material, educate till your heart is content; but there is no moving or budging their resistance. They refuse medicine saying it will kill their loved one. They force food down a body that can no longer use it, causing greater problems, often for their own selfish reason of making themselves feel better. Even though you, as a hospice nurse, may have gone through hundreds of deaths and end of life scenarios, the expertise and knowledge you have gained is greatly ignored. You know that you could truly ease the suffering before you, but you can only stand by helplessly as the patient struggles to breathe and takes those deep, labored “guppy breaths”, or chokes on soup, being forced down their throat. Somewhere deep within a voice screams “Why won’t you listen to me”?
As my coworker sat down today and unloaded this same frustration, I thought a minute about our Father in heaven. He possesses the tools to make us better. Not just to give comfort at the end of life, but to truly live life abundantly, with His spirit present. He knows what we need, he tries to reach out and tell us. He has left us with plenty of good reading material, and He has the experience and knowledge to share.
After all He came and walked as one of us.
Yet we ignore him. We try to shovel the food of this world’s sin into our body, even as our spirit screams “stop”. It’s dying and can not handle any more. We ignore his excellent advice and continue in our own stubborn ways. He has the medicine to make us comfortable, to allow us to breathe freely, and yet we turn away, continuing to labor. We think we know better. We are afraid to trust; to trust one who does know better. And so we too endure needless suffering.
I wonder if in heaven the Angels have ever heard the cry, maybe coming from a far away corner, but none the less as loud as thunder…..”Why won’t you listen to me”?
