Hospice Care

When I'm entering/reviewing orders for someone with terminal cancer and the last "D/C to hospice" order.  A lump will come up in my throat and then I start thinking about life.  What will I die of?  Will someone enter my last orders someday?  Will I die of a terminal cancer or something else?  I know I shouldn't think about it, but the last few decades of life have passed rather briefly.  Will the rest of life be the same?  Quick and so fast you don't take the time to enjoy it? Anyway, that's what those orders do to me... and then I have to clear my thinking and my mind and get back to work.

I just wonder sometimes if others are affected by it in the same way.

One of the most profound rotations in my last year of pharmacy school was with a hospice nurse.  To this day I still remember each and every patient we visited at various stages of dying.  The man whose terminal wife was hours if not a day from death but yet he seemed so stoic and in denial.  That one was the worst.  They had this gorgeous custom home with all the fine details and obviously had planned retirement together in this space.

Life had other plans.