Filled with Emotion

I am so full of emotion. I thought I should get rid of a bit of it by jotting down my thoughts/feelings.

I walked through the nursing home doors this afternoon anticipating a "normal/routine" hospice visit with "Chick" (little did I know).

I ended up spending 3 hours sitting by his side as he grimaced and moaned in pain, holding his hand and offering my thumb when my hand was too much to hold.

Chick is new to hospice as of Monday, and new to his lung caner diagnosis as of 8 weeks ago.

This little, frail, thin, pale man was quiet and didn't have much to say. Come to think of it, I still don't know anything about him. What I do know, it that when he was in his deepest most anguished pain, I was there to offer all I had. My hand.

Through the pain, Chick looked at me and with a half smile said, "you have kind of a whacky sense of humor, don't you?" Another time after releasing his tight grip on my hand he said, "you have nice hands". "Thanks" is what I managed to say.

Countless times I asked him what I could do to ease the pain. He looked at me with sad eyes and said, "just being here for me".  My eyes welled up on more than one occasion. There was nothing I could do for him, but wait for the pain medication to kick in. So, I sat there an offered my hand to a perfect stranger.

Around 4:00 pm, I said to Chick, "think of it, today when I walked in here we were strangers, and now look at us, we're bonded". He smiled and said, "you're my thumb" as he shook my hand.

After his second dose of pain medication,  his eyes began to close, he smiled and said, "thanks".
"It's my pleasure, truly" I replied.

As challenging/emotional as today was for me, it reminds me why I get up everyday and go to work. In between being yelled at by families, the phone calls and paper work and the constant smell of poop, there's that one moment that makes me step back and realize how fortunate I am to enter someone's life at the end and give them my hand.