Love is Breathing Hope

Written By: Mikee Pasaporte

I believe that people in the good ole days never imagined that we would have to pay for the basics in life. We pay a good amount of money to drink potable water. About 25 pesos per liter, depending on the brand. If your palate is selective and craves for artisan water, then you’d be paying more for a bottle of water than a liter of gasoline for your car. There used to be this joke about having to pay for air one of these days. But did you know that some people have to literally pay to breathe?

We have a 43-year old female patient who is diagnosed with Acute Respiratory Failure and TB Bronchiectasis. She has a tracheotomy tube and is dependent on oxygen. Day in and day out, the air we take for granted is the air they have to acquire for her to live. Despite this condition, she thanks God. She thanks God for a supportive family; for a husband who cares for and loves her; for her children who help her out in their free time after school; for each stranger who gives financial aid; for friends she has made along the way. She is thankful because through the midst of her condition, she is still loved.

There have been clinical studies in 2011 (Fredrickson), which according to the author, when people open their hearts to positive emotions, they seed their own growth in ways that transform them for the better. *

Love is in the air that she breathes in…Love is in the air she breathes out. For every breath, there is hope. Hope to make a difference in someone else’s life. Their family has been active in supporting fundraising activities (like benefit concerts, since her husband’s friends are band members), not only for her, but also for other patients who need medical aid.

*The complete clinical study is found at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3156028/

When Hospice Hits Home

Written By: Mikee Pasaporte

A tribute for those who serve in Hospice Care with loved ones who are still in the race and for those family members who have already finished it.

Love begins at home and it is not how much we do, but how much love we put in that action. -Mother Theresa

People who serve in Hospice Care have learned the best tricks of the trade. You can ask any of our doctors, nurses, therapists and volunteers about their best practices. They will give you accurate hands-on- experience answers. They are driven by passionately helping other people. People who they used to call strangers, now have a soft-spot in their hearts. They are now driven to help because of having that special connection between caregiver and care recipient. Some may even call it an act of love, in a way.

But how do these people handle hospice care when it hits home? You tend to be confident in the way that you care for strangers, but when a life-limiting illness creeps inside the door of your home…it’s a new story.

Family members have a habit of being your greatest skeptics. You know that you were trained for this, yet they doubt you, being their son/daughter/ wife/ husband/ etc.. A great way would be to involve other people in the hospice team, to assist in giving instructions and maybe leading a family conference to make sure that everybody is on the same page.

Learn to listen (professionally).  Listen to your loved one as though they weren’t related. Try to push aside thoughts on how they never really listened to you while growing up, or thoughts on how they weren’t as great in taking care of you when you had the stomach flu in 8thgrade. Listen to their silent calls for help. You know their personal cues and now would be the best time to use those cues to help them. Being genuinely happy to help makes a difference and lessens the thoughts of them being an encumbrance.

Take time to breathe. You need to accept the fact that you are not a superhero with unlimited energy levels. It’s OK to feel drained (physically/emotionally) for a while. Asking for help is not a weakness. Remember, you have to take care of yourself too.

The Story of Teamwork

Written By: Mikee Pasaporte

We can’t help everyone. But everyone can help someone.”-Ronald Reagan

We have a 57-year old patient who is diagnosed with Stage 4 breast cancer. She lives alone and has been branded to be “difficult to live with”. She keeps things in place and if you move anything out of order, she gets overly agitated.

She used to beg in front of a major mall in Dasmariñas City, where the TRF team found her in 2013, since she couldn’t find a job because of her condition. When her cancer worsened, she couldn’t stay on the streets for too long. She was then home bound. Being non-ambulatory and relying on the kindness of others, she verbalizes being helpless. Helpless but not hopeless. She shows her determination to be independent as much as she can.

Most of her siblings have given up on her. Most of her neighbors are turned off by her. The little world she has created around her is limited to a handful of people, which our team has the privilege to be a part of.

Our nurses and volunteers give her baths and assists her with activities of daily living. She enjoys painting as art therapy. We want to do so much, but the most that we can do is visit once a week, perhaps twice at the very most. That’s when it came to the realization that we had to “expand” our team. Expand, in the sense that we had to tap different agencies to assist this patient.

She can be alone, but she doesn’t need to be lonely.

The medical team, with our social worker, went the extra mile to call out and empower the community. They gave basic lectures on caring, first aid and the like for free. In exchange, the barangay visits her frequently to take out her trash and even brings cooked meals for her. The City Social Welfare and Development office of Dasmariñas provide her with diapers. The City health office now gives free wound cleaning materials while the local barangay health office sends over community nurses to clean her wounds on days when our team isn’t there to assist her.

I believe that our patient’s world has now grown. The next step is to make her realize that though she was turned down by those she expected to help, more than a handful of people outside her circle are willing to lend their hands to care.

Three Stories: A Father’s Day Tribute

Written By: Mikee Pasaporte

My tribute this month is for all the fathers out there. I have three stories to share.

Story #1:

Just like a flashback scene from a telenovela, a man was left by his wife four years ago to join her lover. She abandoned their two kids and left them in the care of the father, who in this story is a patient of ours. The eldest is a 19-year old boy and the youngest, an 8-year old girl. Four years made a huge difference. Adjusting to life without a mother and having their father diagnosed two years after with Stage 4 Nasopharyngeal cancer, these kids discovered their own ways of coping. The eldest shows his detachment, a mix of fear of losing his father and anger since he was the most affected when his mother left. The youngest is still a kid. She still takes time to play with her father. Placing colorful rubber bands around his now thinning arms, picks on him with tickle fights when she sees that he isn’t in pain, and just acts as though everything else is normal.

Though sick, he finds ways to care for his young ones. He is currently getting weaker by the day. He is cared for by his aunt, who actually raised him, since he was actually abandoned by his mother as a he young child too. The cycle goes on, you may think. He promises that up until his last breath he wouldn’t abandon his own children.

He tries to be strong, despite his physical limitations. He is strong in their eyes and that’s all that matters.

Story #2:

Fathers are normally the bread winners of the family. Our next patient, confessed to be a workaholic for the longest time. Working late nights as an IT programmer, the late shifts and long working days got the best out of him year after year. Then something changed and though it was difficult for him to quit his job, he had to, since he was diagnosed with bone metastasis with an unknown primary etiology leaving him physically weak and eventually bedbound. (Definition: Bone metastasis occurs when cancer cells spread from their original site to a bone. In his case the original site of the cancer is unknown.)

With his condition, he stays at home with his family who had lived in the shadows all these years. He always thought that providing for his family’s financial needs was all that mattered. Only now has he really had the chance to get to know his family. He says that he sees his current condition as a blessing in disguise, since now he can spend more time with his 4 children. He says that at least, now he can help them with their homework. He could actually get to have those ‘talks’ with them. He now has the ‘time’ to show how much he really loves them. When asked if given the opportunity to have his strength back, he answers that he would honestly want to work, but this time balance his work and family life but definitely spend more time with his family.

Story #3:

This isn’t actually a story, but a poem I read sometime this week. A simple tribute to fathers who have already finished the race.

Father’s Day Poem

You never said “I’m leaving”, You never said “Goodbye”

You were gone before I knew it, And only God knew why

A million times I needed you, A million times I cried

If Love alone could have saved you, You never would have died

In life I loved you dearly, In death I love you still

In my heart you hold a place, That no one could ever fill

It broke my heart to lose you, But you didn’t go alone

For part of me went with you, The day God took you Home.

-Anon.

Nurses Care

Written By: Mikee Pasaporte

Nurse Carlo

For the month of May, National Nurses Week is being celebrated worldwide.

Nurse Carlo

Up to this day, I still can’t find the right words to explain how nurses do what they do. Day in and day out they give a part of themselves to the patients they assist. The ones that stay in the home care practice choose to take care of their patients regardless of their personal lack of sleep, hunger pangs, own illnesses, and times when their “me- time” becomes “shared time”, especially when their patients or the patient’s family members call at odd hours in the night.

Nurse AJ

Sometimes they complain, they breakdown, and they feel tired, but it does not make them less of a nurse. It makes them a genuine one—One who can be in touch with how they feel and know how to cope with it. Despite the way they are treated by some hostile patients; the pressure they feel on their lower backs when they carry a patient heavier and taller than they are; the pressure wounds they try their best to heal… regardless of all these and many more, they still find it within their hearts to smile while explaining which medicine to take, be their patient’s crying shoulder and a hand to hold on to when they experience sporadic episodes of intense pain, and still have in them encouraging words to share with both the patient and their families.

In hospice care, we need nurses who provide consistency, excellence and true passion, that in spite of the reality that our patients may leave at any moment, they feel cared for.

Nurse Emma

“They may forget your name, but they will never forget how you made them feel.” -Maya Angelou