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Hope, a good thing.
Today was warm, with hope for spring in the air. I started thinking about how important hope is. Without hope for better things, getting through the hard days of life could be next to impossible for so many of us. It's that spark of optimism, that sense that if I can just get past this tough bit, the sun will shine again. Without hope, how does one carry the heavy weight of life's hard times?
Working in ICU, where so often there seems to be no hope at all, I am always amazed to see how powerful that need for hope is in all of us, and how wonderful it is to see despair turning to hope, even if it's just hope that there is hope. It's so easy to become resistant to the idea of hope in the face of overwhelming crisis, and I've seen it in the way we react when someone is at that crossroads between life and death; when what we as medical professionals see as a futile effort to keep someone alive comes up to a family who still hope. Sometimes we're right, there is no longer hope for any kind of useful recovery, and the best option is to keep the person comfortable and allow him or her a peaceful death; but sometimes, the hope is so strong that it seems like it's the one thing that pulls the person back from the brink. In my long nursing career, I have looked after more than one person who I truly believed had very little chance of recovery, and whose care made me agonize over our continuing efforts; more than once I've wondered if we were actually causing more pain than good, if we were guilty of prolonging the inevitable. In some cases I've been right; in others, beyond all my expectations, I've been wrong, and the person recovers, seemingly only cured by the strength of the belief that there was hope for it. I vividly remember several people: Harry, who was in a coma for months, with end stage liver disease, whose wife insisted he would recover, despite the doctors' gloomy prognosis. Every day, she would stand at his bedside and chant, in a singsong voice: "Harry Jones, open your eyes; Harry Jones, you're going to wake up; Harry Jones open your eyes!" We all would roll our eyes and think she was a little strange. Harry never showed any signs of waking up...until one day, after he had been transferred out of ICU to a medical ward where we figured he would die, he just opened his eyes and woke up. When I heard the news, I went over to the ward to visit him, to see for myself. Sure enough, there he was, awake and talking. In fact, his first words, according to the nurses, were to his wife. He woke up, looked at her, and said "where's my fucking cadillac?" We laughed about that for ages. It proved to me that there is just no way to really predict what will happen, even in the most hopeless of scenarios.
In ICU right now we have another example of hope shining out of a seemingly hopeless case...we have a patient, a young man who was in a motor vehicle accident almost 3 years ago; he sustained major head injuries and was in a coma for a year. When he recovered enough, his family brought him home..to their home in a refugee camp. Despite the difficulties faced by the family, they never gave up their hope that he would live; for over a year they cared for him 24/7, doing literally everything for him. He was unable to speak, and was a quadriplegic because of his brain injuries. A few months ago, the family was accepted by Canada as refugees, and they arrived here. The young man came to ICU directly from the airport; he has been with us since. He's a beautiful young man, locked in his body, able to communicate only by blinking his eyes, or moving one finger. His family are amazing; his care was awesome; not one blemish on his skin, not a pressure sore, care that I don't think we could measure up to. Their dedication and hope is inspiring. One of the best things we've been able to do for him is the work of our speech pathologist; she has been working with him to find ways for him to communicate, to get out of his locked in body and interact with the world. It's the combination of dedication, inspiration and technology that is making such a change to his situation; she is working on the use of spelling boards and is figuring out ways to use an IPad with him. I don't know what else she has in mind, but what she has done so far is enough that every time she walks into his room, he gets the biggest smile on his face. Communication and hope, a marvellous combination.
Hope, it's a good thing. When I feel overwhelmed by life, I think of stories like this, and remember to hope.
Working in ICU, where so often there seems to be no hope at all, I am always amazed to see how powerful that need for hope is in all of us, and how wonderful it is to see despair turning to hope, even if it's just hope that there is hope. It's so easy to become resistant to the idea of hope in the face of overwhelming crisis, and I've seen it in the way we react when someone is at that crossroads between life and death; when what we as medical professionals see as a futile effort to keep someone alive comes up to a family who still hope. Sometimes we're right, there is no longer hope for any kind of useful recovery, and the best option is to keep the person comfortable and allow him or her a peaceful death; but sometimes, the hope is so strong that it seems like it's the one thing that pulls the person back from the brink. In my long nursing career, I have looked after more than one person who I truly believed had very little chance of recovery, and whose care made me agonize over our continuing efforts; more than once I've wondered if we were actually causing more pain than good, if we were guilty of prolonging the inevitable. In some cases I've been right; in others, beyond all my expectations, I've been wrong, and the person recovers, seemingly only cured by the strength of the belief that there was hope for it. I vividly remember several people: Harry, who was in a coma for months, with end stage liver disease, whose wife insisted he would recover, despite the doctors' gloomy prognosis. Every day, she would stand at his bedside and chant, in a singsong voice: "Harry Jones, open your eyes; Harry Jones, you're going to wake up; Harry Jones open your eyes!" We all would roll our eyes and think she was a little strange. Harry never showed any signs of waking up...until one day, after he had been transferred out of ICU to a medical ward where we figured he would die, he just opened his eyes and woke up. When I heard the news, I went over to the ward to visit him, to see for myself. Sure enough, there he was, awake and talking. In fact, his first words, according to the nurses, were to his wife. He woke up, looked at her, and said "where's my fucking cadillac?" We laughed about that for ages. It proved to me that there is just no way to really predict what will happen, even in the most hopeless of scenarios.
In ICU right now we have another example of hope shining out of a seemingly hopeless case...we have a patient, a young man who was in a motor vehicle accident almost 3 years ago; he sustained major head injuries and was in a coma for a year. When he recovered enough, his family brought him home..to their home in a refugee camp. Despite the difficulties faced by the family, they never gave up their hope that he would live; for over a year they cared for him 24/7, doing literally everything for him. He was unable to speak, and was a quadriplegic because of his brain injuries. A few months ago, the family was accepted by Canada as refugees, and they arrived here. The young man came to ICU directly from the airport; he has been with us since. He's a beautiful young man, locked in his body, able to communicate only by blinking his eyes, or moving one finger. His family are amazing; his care was awesome; not one blemish on his skin, not a pressure sore, care that I don't think we could measure up to. Their dedication and hope is inspiring. One of the best things we've been able to do for him is the work of our speech pathologist; she has been working with him to find ways for him to communicate, to get out of his locked in body and interact with the world. It's the combination of dedication, inspiration and technology that is making such a change to his situation; she is working on the use of spelling boards and is figuring out ways to use an IPad with him. I don't know what else she has in mind, but what she has done so far is enough that every time she walks into his room, he gets the biggest smile on his face. Communication and hope, a marvellous combination.
Hope, it's a good thing. When I feel overwhelmed by life, I think of stories like this, and remember to hope.
