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May. 28th, 2008
"Been Hangin' 'Round New Mexico..."
May. 28th, 2008 11:00 pmI do not like:
When people imply that if you work in hospice or a nursing home, you have to be pretty heartless, because otherwise there is no way you could cope with seeing people you interacted with and liked dying all the time. No, no, no. That's not how it works at all.
How it works is, it's not fair to give up on loving people just because they're sick and dying. Sometimes their families can't handle that, sometimes it is too much work or it is too scary for them or they live too far away or they don't know how to deal with it; and so you make sure that if they need help taking good care of their people, you are there.
That's the point.
Of course you feel bad, and when people die, you grieve, and you hurt plenty. But you know that most of the people are pretty sick, and you want them just to feel as loved as possible until they can stop being hurt or sick or in pain.
Ugh.
(I am working hospice this summer, and really excited about it. I miss this kind of work so much.)
When people imply that if you work in hospice or a nursing home, you have to be pretty heartless, because otherwise there is no way you could cope with seeing people you interacted with and liked dying all the time. No, no, no. That's not how it works at all.
How it works is, it's not fair to give up on loving people just because they're sick and dying. Sometimes their families can't handle that, sometimes it is too much work or it is too scary for them or they live too far away or they don't know how to deal with it; and so you make sure that if they need help taking good care of their people, you are there.
That's the point.
Of course you feel bad, and when people die, you grieve, and you hurt plenty. But you know that most of the people are pretty sick, and you want them just to feel as loved as possible until they can stop being hurt or sick or in pain.
Ugh.
(I am working hospice this summer, and really excited about it. I miss this kind of work so much.)
