Hard Times

The past few weeks have been trying and very busy. I am now able to take a breath and start focusing on other things.

Someone really close to me has just passed away and for the past 10 years I have been helping them (as much as they have been helping me.) I won’t go into a whole sad story about all of that. This is about the people and organizations that were supposed to be there to make things “as smooth as possible” and yet didn’t.

As I mentioned I was helping this person for the past 10 years, but it was really for the past 10 days of this person’s life that I had to constantly “fight” with everyone. I had to fight with the doctor and his staff, I had to fight with the hospice nurse, I had to fight with the funeral home, I had to fight with other family members and I had to fight with myself to stay awake and make sure I was always there. I did all this fighting so that I could make sure the last wishes of the person came true. Of course all this fighting put a big strain on me that I am now just starting to realize what has happened.

The hospice nurse didn’t want to start home hospice on the Friday she first came to the house. She wanted to put it off until that Monday, but I didn’t want the person to be in any pain – especially on the weekend  - and so made the nurse start hospice. The nurse was the hospice director and while she was an ok nurse she was a horrible hospice employee much less a director. She said that she would do everything and that the only thing we would have to do is make sure the person was as comfortable as possible. That was not the case at all. Not only did we have to constantly remind her to bring supplies (many which she never did bring) but she made us get the pain medicine everyday – even though hospice was paying for it  - and that meant driving around the state to find a pharmacy that had the medicine in the amount we needed it.  The nurse also said that she would have a chaplain and a psychologist come and help us. We have yet to hear from any chaplain and the psychologist took a long time to contact us and then came (not for me, but for other members of my family.) One thing my family member wanted was a Catholic priest to give the Last Rites and that was supposed to be done through the hospice chaplain, but as I already said the chaplain never got ahold of us, and so we had to find a priest by ourselves (catching them after Sunday service and asking them to come to our house and then having to wait several hours because they were the only priest in 4 towns and had to do another service elsewhere first.) The priest did come later that day and it really helped. Again, this was something that should have been taken care of by the hospice team and wasn’t. The nurse even had the gull to make jokes when we were changing the clothes of my deceased family member (about how she – the nurse – forgot supplies.) It really infuriated me more than anything has ever before. Also the nurse said that when the person passed she would be with us and have the funeral home there too within 30 minutes. The nurse took an hour to come and the funeral home took 2 hours and 40 minutes – even though both are only 23 minutes away. I refuse to have anything to do with that hospice nurse/director ever again and only hope she gets the same treatment she gave us when her time comes.

The doctor gave us issues. We had to constantly deal with them to get the prescriptions every day for the pain medicine and make sure the amount listed was enough to last. Also we had to wait all weekend for him to sign the death certificate since we couldn’t do the burial or anything else until we got it.

The funeral home also gave us some problems. We let them know beforehand what we wanted and yet they waited until it was too late to start doing anything.  The main thing was that they didn’t have the coffin we wanted and so they got it from another state (1 ½ hours away.) It was the weekend and apparently no one was working and so we didn’t get the coffin until Monday afternoon and we had to wait until then to have a private family viewing. The funeral home also had to transport the body to another state for the burial in a National Cemetery. There was no problem with that at least.

The National Cemetery only gives you 20 minutes for the funeral and you can’t have it at the plot, but in a semi-covered kiosk. It seemed very rushed and not at all considerate to the family members.  You don’t even get to see the coffin being put in the ground – you have to wait a few hours and then find the grave afterwards.

Having gone through this experience one thing has been made clear to me: you cannot count on anyone else for help. The saying: “If you want it done right you have to do itself” is definitely true. It also makes me question the people living in this state. They say one thing and do nothing. Their true colors have been shown and it reinforces my distrust and dislike of them. They only want to work during regular business hours and don’t care if someone passes away on a weekend (as happened in this case.) They don’t seem to care about helping others (especially those dying) when it is after-hours or the weekend. It makes me disgusted to think about how all these different people, who are supposed to be in positions to help people and ease their passing, really treat this as a job rather than a calling. Again, I can only hope and pray that they all receive the same treatment that they gave us when it is their time.

 If I had known what would have happened I would have made sure to go someplace else before my family member got too sick. The only thing that helps me is knowing that despite all the problems from different people throughout all this I know that I did my best to make sure my family member did not endure any pain or discomfort. I took care of it and made sure it was kept away from them.

One thing that still annoys me is when people (especially those I have never met) tell me that now I can “finally” get-on with my life (as though the last 10 years I did nothing) and them asking me what I plan on doing – especially when my family member hadn’t even passed away yet and I was solely focused on them.