Last Palliative Care Blog....I Promise.

Now that I'm done with Palliative Care and have moved on to Anesthesia, I thought I'd do a little wrap up of my month on PC. 

Here are a few things I learned......

1. The Train.  People die in hospitals every day.  Some days, however, it seems that one person after another dies....every room you walk into, the patient has either just expired, or is taking his/her final breaths.  On these days, it is common to hear talk around the PC service that "The Train" came today, or "The Train is here."  In my head, the train is much like the Polar Express, except that it takes you to Heaven....hopefully :)

2. "I see dead people."  One strange phenomenon that happens as death draws near, is that patients will tell you that they were visited by family members.  That's great....everyone should have family come by to say their goodbyes.  Except that the family members that these patients report seeing are usually people that have already died.  It's crazy how many times this happens.  And it seems to me that it only happens when people are very close to death.  It might be easy to chalk this up to delirium, but it just happens so consistently that there has to be something to it.

3. Miracles.  Most people who are dying pray for miracles.  Family members hold out hope and say that they are praying and that God can work miracles.  While this is all well and good, (and you can bet your false teeth that I'd be the first to hit my knees if myself of anyone I love was dying) sometimes I wonder if we have a teeny-tiny-in-a-very-small-box-idea of what miracles actually are.  I believe whole-heartedly that God can do anything He wants, be it cure cancer, reverse congestive heart failure, bring people back from death.  Most of us would say that these things are miracles.  And I would agree.  The longer I spend around death and dying, however, I've come to believe that death is just the beginning of the true miracle.  It's a miracle that I can't comprehend and don't understand, but a miracle that I know is greater than anything we could fathom in this life.  The miracle was set in place a couple of thousand years ago when Jesus hung on a cross and died for all of us.  And yesterday we celebrated the miracle of the resurrection and the forgiveness of sins and the eternal life that is offered to all of us.  That miracle blows curing cancer and healing brain death out of the water (although I would take either of those if offered.)  I'm not trying to make light of death, because it sucks.  It's horrible, it hurts, it leaves a hole in our hearts.  But I just have a feeling that when we die, there is something so spectacular waiting for us that, well....there really are no words.  Just the voices of hundreds of thousands of angels.

"Where O death is now thy sting?"

I hope you hear the angels someday.....but not too soon :)