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Think about the title above. Close your eyes and reflect, with words or pictures, what does a person look like if he or she is dying? I will wait for you.
On the one hand, some might say that everyone is always dying in small degrees, but that is not what I wish to consider here. Some days after Marcia's last meeting with her oncologist on March 19, 2019 (see story about this encounter: The Beginning of the End), at her behest I contacted the local hospice about initiating the process of engaging in home hospice care.
Several days later, we had an appointment scheduled. A hospice nurse was going to come to our home and begin the onboarding process with an interview. At this point, Marcia had already started getting tired more easily than in the past (including 6 weeks earlier when we took about a 6-week trip south: read here). Also, recall that Marcia's face was still hurting from the case of shingles that started shortly after her mastectomy. Thus, Marcia asked if I could try to answer any questions that I could, and she would answer those that required her response.
When the nurse came, I called Marcia from downstairs, where she was resting in her hammock. She then sat on the couch, I next to her, and the nurse in a chair. I explained Marcia's request for me to try to answer the general questions because of her pain from the shingles, and the nurse was fine with that. Things started out with perfunctory questions that I could answer, and the nurse was starting to see the picture. I could see on the nurse's face a sympathetic expression. However, at one question, I deferred somewhat to Marcia and she bounced off the couch to look at the calendar in the kitchen. I happened to be watching the nurse as Marcia got up, and her "face dropped" since Marcia had arisen as if she were still a spring chicken. From that point on, I could see that the nurse was trying to wrap up the appointment. When I asked a question about the time table or when we would hear back or something like that, the nurse avoided giving a straightforward answer but indicated something about "her talking" to her colleagues in order to deliver further direction.
In my mind, I was quite certain that when Marcia got up so quickly and energetically, this nurse switched, in her mind, from seeing a dying person to seeing someone who was not dying. I don't know if we formally received a "deferment" status (i.e., rejected for now) or if I found this out when I went to the Comfort House (the hospice's in-house unit) for a follow-up. I was quite sure that this nurse made a faulty conclusion based on that one action that Marcia took. Fortunately, I found a nurse who was understanding and sympathetic to my purpose in my follow-up visit. Within a few days, Marcia was fully onboarded as a home hospice patient and this new nurse was reassigned to the case worker. I was so thankful to be heard. I knew that she was dying, even if her energizer battery was still working well. Marcia died within about 4 months.
Published 2025-08-08.
If you find any error(s) in the text, please let me know. Thanks. Contact me with errors or comments using hibbardac@gmail. [Back to the top] [About the author, Al]
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