A tender hand was also needed for those who invariably cameto us in the final days of their lives. We’d had one such patient on the wardfor the past few days, a middle-aged man who was on the verge of succumbing,like so many before him, to the ravages of lung cancer.
I had grown to like Thomas Scott. Despite his terminal stateof health he had maintained his dignity and even a sense of humour, joking andeven flirting with me a little as I cared for him. As the end neared I feltincreasingly sorry for Thomas. He was only in his fifties which was far tooyoung to die.
His daughter Stacey, a lovely and compassionate young woman,came in to see him every day. She was clearly devoted to her father, andstriking up a conversation with her I found out there had been a fair amount oftragedy in her life. Her mother had been killed by a drink-driver years beforeand now she was about to become an orphan in her twenties.
She, too, needed comfort, perhaps more so than Thomas whoseemed to have accepted his fate. I was more than happy to be a shoulder to cryon, reflecting that it wasn’t just the patients that needed help sometimes: itwas also those closest to them.
Some of my colleagues were of the opinion that we should keepa professional distance from our patients, including their nearest and dearest,but I didn’t agree. This wasn’t a production line in a factory – we weredealing with living, feeling human beings. Just by being in hospital they werein many cases going through some of the most traumatic moments of their lives,dying or otherwise.
I had come into caring after witnessing death and misery ona wide scale in my youth after a natural disaster. I had realised then thatwhat I wanted to do was care for those in need. If I was detached from people’semotional needs, then what was the point? I might as well go and stack shelvesin Tesco.
I did a lot of caring that last, normal day. Just before Igot off shift in the morning I spent some time with Kacey, the girl who hadtried to take her own life during the Hogmanay celebrations. It came as nosurprise to hear it was all over a man, who in this case had turned out to be areally nasty piece of work.
Over the course of about half an hour she related the wholegrisly tale to me. It seemed that she had been muddling along as a single mumuntil a couple of years ago until this lad, Aaron, had come into her life andswept her off her feet. But he hadn’t been all he had appeared to be.
He had been a drug dealer and a criminal, who had graduallytaken over her life, seducing her with money and glamour before hooking her ondrugs so he could control her. He also used her flat to store his merchandiseand when she eventually got raided following a tip-off, it was her, rather thanhim, that the police arrested.
With threats of violence if she implicated him, Kacey endedup in court and fined, but it didn’t end there. In a financial mess anddrug-dependent, she had come to the attention of social services. Ultimately,her three-year-old daughter was taken away.
That had been the final nail in the coffin that had drivenher to the overdose. Aaron, of course, was long gone by this time, having movedon to his next victim.
I tried to empathise with her situation as best as I couldbut my suffering at the hands of my unfaithful man was trivial compared to whatshe had been through. Remembering the heartbreak I had been through at NewYear, four years ago, I could scarcely begin to imagine the extent of her pain.
I wanted to tell her it would get easier, but would it? Shehad pretty much lost everything. All I could do was counsel her and offer heradvice on how to get clean and get her daughter back which had to be the numberone priority.
After a few hours’ sleep, I came back into work on theevening of 1st January for the last of my four nights. It turned out it was tobe my last night in a way which I was completely unaware of yet. During thisfinal shift my world was going to be turned upside down.
On my return I discovered that Thomas Scott was in a badway. He was unconscious and near death. The strange events that were to changemy life were destined to occur in his private room which was just off the mainward. It was paid for by the private healthcare he received as part of hispension package.
Apparently he had had quite a stellar career in the retailtrade and had retired early, clearly not short of a few quid. This was allinformation I had gleaned from one of my many chats with Stacey over theprevious few days. Talking about her dad seemed to help her deal with what shewas going through.
The last time I had spoken to Thomas himself had been on themorning of the 30th, just before I went off shift. He had been struggling thatday, seemingly forgetful of who he was or why he was in hospital. Subsequently,he had gone quickly downhill. By the time I came into work on the evening of 1stJanuary it was clear he was not going to last the night.
The end came in the early hours of the following morning. Ihad been caring for him during the previous few hours, but had gone for a breakwhen the inevitable happened. It was left to my colleague Carmen to give me sadnews when she returned to the break room.
“I’m afraid Mr Scott’s just passed away,” she said.
Some people think that we nurses become anaesthetised tosuch news, dealing with it every
