A family member of mine was put on hospice last night. I come from a big family so there's about 9 of us sitting in a room and in a lull of silence my mom stands up and goes, "Jennifer, I need to talk to you in the hallway."
She finds a sitting area and starts asking me questions about his multi-system infection, giant back wound (pressure ulcer), what hospice looks like, what a DNR is, why CPR is dangerous in his condition, why food can't be given through an IV since he can't swallow, (He's too fragile to go through a Central Line or G-tube at this point), etc, etc.
English is my mom's second language, so sometimes she's a little slower to process things because she's translating in her head and figuring it all out, so when we reentered and someone asked where we were, she said "I needed Jen to help me understand what's going on."
AND THEN THE BOMB DROPPED. "Oh, but she's just a school nurse, I didn't know she knew about this stuff. " slipped from a cousin's mouth. My mom nearly tackled them because she knows how hard I've worked for my Certification and getting into a Master's program for the fall.
I know this is a repetitive topic but it just hit me hard yesterday and agitated me a bit extra so wanted to vent.
