August 11, 2010
Since beginning the Blog, many of you have written in response “I’m (or) Mom (or) Dad (is) in Hospice now”, to tell me about the profound step that this comment encompasses… The thoughts about antibiotics and other meds that might take this away were there right behind the eyes, but the rational self repeated again that there is no way to delay or hurry death. We all die, so everyone you meet today will join you and hopefully whatever has been your own most glorious mental image of heaven will begin to surround you. I don’t know the great mystery.
The disease is most profoundly involved in my left lung. If I take a huge breath, the lung informs me “Don’t do that”. The loud, constant hacking must be annoying, but the caregivers assure me it is “nothing”. I think “hah!” but drop the subject. My life has not changed greatly since last week,that is, in the cadence of how the days move but as I go through it feels like its takes me a long, long time. I am inhaling oxygen and I reel a little when I walk, so you can imagine someone hovering, right? My energy no longer exists and I am getting confused about what day it is.
There. That is the way this feels today. I think I’ll give “The Disease” a big font.
We have found the readings from the Psalms to have the cadence of comfort…Psalm 121, Psalm 112, and on and onward. The best prayers seem to come from childhood. “Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray thee Lord my soul to keep. Asking thee to watch and keep, and to send me quiet sleep.” Perhaps that prayer repeated hundreds of times throughout this life comforts because here is the same God that made me always feel safe. I think we all had a “Pneumonia Moment” when we signed the Hospice papers, and the fact that I am still here is a happy surprise.