Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Another Day
K came today. Her son died suddenly. She said that when you're "old" (she's in her eighties) you come to expect these things. She isn't really depressed about this. That is something that always surprises me. I've had a few patients who have lost children and were "OK" with it. I don't know how, but it's very inspiring. I'm pretty sure I couldn't do that. They have great strenght. I have one patient who comes every two months. He is 95 years old. He only needs to come here once every six months. He wants to come in every month. So it's a compromise. He asks me lots of advice, but doesn't follow most of it. I'm not sure why he likes coming in here so much. He always tells me how wonderful it is to come here and how important I am in his care. I can't really believe that, because he doesn't usually do what I tell him. That's a funny thing. My very obese stroke patient came in again. He has very severe apathy. He just doesn't care about anything. His wife prepares all of his meals. I've been talking to them about his weight for years. Today I told HER to stop giving him all of this food. He can't shop. He doesn't get his own food. So everything he eats, she gives him. I put all of the burden on her. We'll see how that works. She gives him ice cream every night before dinner. That's not good at all. I told her that's going to give him a stroke, so it's not worth it.
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3 comments:
Don't you think that loneliness can cause people to react in curious ways?
Some may go numb and their tears fade away with time.
Some may arrange a date with someone just to feel the sensation of a voice other than their own. Maybe your patient just wants to feel the vibration of your voice and the words are irrelevant.
Then there are others who live with a loved one who is longer the person they once knew who may no longer react with a smile because they no longer can. I wonder if your patient's wife feeds him ice cream because it brings her back to a time when they would sit and have ice cream together, talk about their day and find some laughter in their stories to each other. Who knows?
I think everything causes people to react in curious ways. That's why people are people. People are fascinating. There is a great deal of loneliness. People think that they are alone. But there are so many people who are alone that they are all together in being alone. Alone is a bit of a delusion. The wife feeds her husband ice cream because she feels alone. She feels a sense of a connection with the ice cream. But she is not alone in the first place and no less alone with ice cream. In reality, even as she's trying to connect the ice cream distances her. It makes him more overweight and at higher risk of diabetic complications and stroke. Then, her fear of his death and disability increase. His actual disability increases. So she is more alone. He becomes less and less who he was. Although his mind is different from his stroke, his spirit isn't. If she connected spiritually with him and with all others who are in her shoes and with herself and with her sorrow then she would be less alone. Then, he could have less ice cream.
If someone is at a point of extreme fatigue coupled with lonliness, I wonder if there are trees that are too high to climb.
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