Francis
03.28.05 (8:27 am) [edit]Francis is one of the men I am taking care of. He is in his early eighties and has a lot of health problems. First of all his kidneys are slowly shutting down, he has congestive heart failure, diabetes and needs a lot of insulin. He gets two long acting insulin shots a day and then gets checked four times a day to see if he needs some short term insulin to help keep his blood sugar down. We are doing well at that, and it is slowing down his kidney failure. He has made it clear that he does not want Dialysis and so we stopped taking him to the doctor that deals with that sort of thing. He does go in once a week for his Proquid shot, without it he would soon die. The shot helps to keep his hemoglobin up; though I think soon he will not want to go in and get that since his health, what remains of it, is slowly failing.
Yesterday when I went in to work he seemed to be hallucinating and out of touch with his surroundings, so I got our finger pulsox machine and took a reading on his oxygen level. It was 87 and since he seemed comfortable I waited another hour and checked again. This time his oxygen level was 83; so we put him on a concentrator with 3 liters of oxygen for twenty minutes and then put it down to two liters. This kept his level at 95, this AM I put him on 2 1/2 liters of oxygen since he was low again. It does not seem long for him before he dies or perhas just wears out.
Francis was a powerful man when he was young and worked out doors all the time with farming and also delivering his product, which was hay. He loved his work and he still talks about it quite a bit. He had a very rough childhood in which his father for some reason hated him and used to beat him in a very harsh manner; he was hit with firewood, pokers, bats etc, you name it he was beaten with it. So you can see that he at times has problems with anger; but not as much as one would expect from someone with such a past,who has so many inner wounds and demons to contend with.
He is easy to take care of with a good sense of humor and loves to eat; at least he used to; lately his appetite has been way down. He of course loved everything that was bad for him, hamburgers with the works, chile (his all time favorite) and hot dogs. We do indulged his food addictions (or did) but keep some control since he always felt bad after eating such food. His doctor said once a week would be all right... but to do more than that would be asking for serious trouble and increase he suffering. Francis went along with it but looked forward to his once a week snack even if there was a price to pay afterward.
I think when I am old and being taking care of (if I live that long of course); I think I will spend a lot of time saying to myself “so that is what it was like to have to be taken care of and having these things done to me”. The way time flies for me it won't be long me thinks.
We lessen as we get older at least on the physical level and some men handle it better than others. I am impressed on how Francis handles his diminishments, he does not like it but he is calm, and I guess his deep faith is also a help to him. I suppose his deep relationship with God is one reason that his past has not had the negative affective it otherwise could have had on him. I believe that prayer is healing on a deep level and that it slowly lessens the harm that evil can have on us.
He loves to watch movies and he keeps himself occupied with that form of entertainment. We also bring him in DVDs to look at from time to time, he loves the shot'em up type....most men do....I do.
I will miss him when he goes, it seems to be getting harder for me when one of the men I take care of dies but I don’t mind, it means that my heart is expanding and the pain is worth it, it means that I am alive and growing. I don’t cling but I do mourn since love is a space in our hearts that becomes empty when a loved one dies. Love and pain seem to go togeather but worth the price, our hearts or not meant to be keep in the freezer.
Peace
mitch
Yesterday when I went in to work he seemed to be hallucinating and out of touch with his surroundings, so I got our finger pulsox machine and took a reading on his oxygen level. It was 87 and since he seemed comfortable I waited another hour and checked again. This time his oxygen level was 83; so we put him on a concentrator with 3 liters of oxygen for twenty minutes and then put it down to two liters. This kept his level at 95, this AM I put him on 2 1/2 liters of oxygen since he was low again. It does not seem long for him before he dies or perhas just wears out.
Francis was a powerful man when he was young and worked out doors all the time with farming and also delivering his product, which was hay. He loved his work and he still talks about it quite a bit. He had a very rough childhood in which his father for some reason hated him and used to beat him in a very harsh manner; he was hit with firewood, pokers, bats etc, you name it he was beaten with it. So you can see that he at times has problems with anger; but not as much as one would expect from someone with such a past,who has so many inner wounds and demons to contend with.
He is easy to take care of with a good sense of humor and loves to eat; at least he used to; lately his appetite has been way down. He of course loved everything that was bad for him, hamburgers with the works, chile (his all time favorite) and hot dogs. We do indulged his food addictions (or did) but keep some control since he always felt bad after eating such food. His doctor said once a week would be all right... but to do more than that would be asking for serious trouble and increase he suffering. Francis went along with it but looked forward to his once a week snack even if there was a price to pay afterward.
I think when I am old and being taking care of (if I live that long of course); I think I will spend a lot of time saying to myself “so that is what it was like to have to be taken care of and having these things done to me”. The way time flies for me it won't be long me thinks.
We lessen as we get older at least on the physical level and some men handle it better than others. I am impressed on how Francis handles his diminishments, he does not like it but he is calm, and I guess his deep faith is also a help to him. I suppose his deep relationship with God is one reason that his past has not had the negative affective it otherwise could have had on him. I believe that prayer is healing on a deep level and that it slowly lessens the harm that evil can have on us.
He loves to watch movies and he keeps himself occupied with that form of entertainment. We also bring him in DVDs to look at from time to time, he loves the shot'em up type....most men do....I do.
I will miss him when he goes, it seems to be getting harder for me when one of the men I take care of dies but I don’t mind, it means that my heart is expanding and the pain is worth it, it means that I am alive and growing. I don’t cling but I do mourn since love is a space in our hearts that becomes empty when a loved one dies. Love and pain seem to go togeather but worth the price, our hearts or not meant to be keep in the freezer.
Peace
mitch