Love is in the air!

I am officially loved up!

My dates (yes dates, plural) with Matt have been awesome and so it was with a spring in my step that I returned to work last Monday after my annual leave.

I must have looked a proper gorm, smiling from ear to ear with that faraway look in my eyes. In fact, during handover one of the nurses asked me if I’d been overdosing on Krispy Kremes for breakfast again! 

I couldn’t wait to see my patients in Eden Bay. A couple of my ladies had been discharged, but I had new ones to get to know and then there was the die-hards – the ladies who seemed to have been there forever but who never failed to keep me on my toes. It was lovely to see them again and even more lovely when they told me that they’d missed me.

Jo wasn’t on duty my first day back so I was quite relaxed and spent time catching up with my patients’ progress and finding out what I could about my new admissions. I was regaling them with tales of my dates with Matt and we were having a proper laugh.

I know there’s that misconception about hospitals being miserable places where patients are pre-occupied with their illness, but that morning, we chucked that theory out of the window and I really believed that my ladies enjoyed hearing about my newly found love-life (to be honest, some of the tales they told me about their own antics made me blush…!) 

One of my new ladies was Helen. She was living with Motor Neurone Disease and was in the very advanced stages; totally dependent and admitted due to a chest infection – it was believed that she had aspirated on fluids and had become quite poorly. Her daughter had been looking after her at home with a package of support, but at handover they said that she was waiting for an available place at the local hospice.

I introduced myself to Helen. She could still speak but her voice was soft and she soon became breathless. I needed to reassess her needs in readiness for her move to the hospice and wanted to make sure that I accurately recorded her wants and wishes as she approached the end of her life. We talked about lots of things including making sure she was comfortable and pain free and I scribbled it all down so that I could give a proper account to the hospice team.

I don’t know what made me glance up at Helen, but when I did, silent tears were streaming down her face. She wasn’t able to move her arms to wipe them away, so I did it for her. I put my pad and pen on her bedside cabinet and moved over so that I was sitting on the bed with her. Steve the charge nurse would have throttled me if he’d seen me – perched like a fat bird on Helen’s bed –but she seemed to need me close by and it seemed the natural thing to do.

I didn’t ask her what was wrong, that was obvious, instead I asked what I could do to make her feel better. She seemed to have a lot to get off her chest and told me how worried she was about how her family would cope after she had gone. She said that she knew that she only had a short time left but that she was ready to go. She had lived with her condition for the last twenty years and she was tired.

I don’t know who was more tearful – me or Helen. She was so pragmatic about dying, so selfless as she worried about how her daughter (who was also her best friend) would manage without her. Her daughter was married with grown up children and from what I could gather Helen was still the respected head of the family.

And then she shared her biggest wish – that she could live for just one more Christmas. She told me tales about her childhood and how her parents, with not two pennies to rub together, had always made it a magical time for her and her brother. She had then tried to do the same for her daughter and Christmas had always been her favourite time of the year.

I knew in my heart that Helen wasn’t well enough to see another Christmas; her notes showed just how poorly she was and her transfer to the hospice was being treated with a sense of urgency. How my heart ached when Helen told me that she knew she only had a short time left on this earth – and how it almost broke when she told me she couldn’t imagine how her daughter would cope without her at Christmas.

And that’s when I had a cunning plan….

I sniffed out Steve in my break and shared my plan with him. He looked at me with a kind of ‘ I despair of you Florence’ look before agreeing, as long as it didn’t interfere with the care of my other patients.

I legged it down to the canteen and shared my plan with the lovely ladies from the Royal Voluntary Service and they were chirping with enthusiasm and ideas. I then rang Helen’s daughter and asked if she would have any objections to the plot.

Having colluded with the other 5 ladies in Eden Bay, we then came good with our plan.

On Thursday morning, we officially brought Christmas forward.

The ladies from the Voluntary service were like ninjas as they arrived on the ward before anyone was awake and decked out Eden Bay – tinsel, lights and a 6 foot Christmas tree next to Helen’s bed. She awoke to Christmas carols playing and a stocking at the end of her bed. Her face was an absolute picture and she scoured the room until she found me and our eyes met. I approached her bed tentatively, not quite sure whether I’d read this completely wrong. I needn’t have worried – the tears she cried were not of regret, or sadness but thanks. Thanks for listening to her and taking her wishes seriously. 

We had a really fun day. I’d bought Helen a present, and her family visited throughout the day, bearing gifts and sharing memories. The ladies in the bay would break into impromptu song and poor Helen had to suffer every possible Christmas song from Jingle Bells to Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer! Dinner was served complete with crackers, hats and a speech from Queenie (Bed 2 – the closest we could get to the Queen!!) Even Steve joined in the fun and came dressed as Santa.

At the end of the day, Helen called me over in her soft voice. She looked absolutely exhausted but there was a look of contentment on her face.

As I leaned over to hear what she was saying, Helen asked me to lean in closer, and I felt her lips brush across my cheek. ‘Thank you’, she said. ‘Thank you for bringing the meaning of Christmas to me one more time’. I told Helen that it was the least I could do, to which she replied ‘The greatest gift you can give anyone Florence is time – you gave your time to help make memories for the people I have to leave behind – thank you.’

I cried that night when I got home. Cried for Helen and the Christmas she wouldn’t see and wept with pride for the smile on her face.

Helen didn’t get to the hospice. She slipped quietly away that night and the nurses told me they’d never seen such a beautiful and peaceful face as they paid their final respects, with the soft tones of Nat King Cole playing in the background.