Difficult Seasons

As a lay chaplain, I’ve gotten to make a lot of ICU visits. At MD Anderson where I provide pastoral care for Lifeline Chaplaincy, a whole floor is devoted to ICU, with some of the units focused on treating patients needing intensive care because of surgical causes, and other units focused on other medical crises.

You always know that ICU is a serious place. People are there because their lives depend on receiving specialized, life stabilizing, intensive medical care. There are all kinds of machines in the rooms, lines and tubes running everywhere, monitors with flashing lights, and sometimes breathing support devices and even more. Sometimes the patient is in isolation because of infection, and gowns, masks, and gloves have to be worn by everyone entering the room. And of course, hand sanitization is standard before and after leaving the room.

Sometimes the ICU room is almost erily calm, while other times it is a hive of activity with medical staff performing procedures or doing assessments. Sometimes a family member is present (many spend the night in the room with their spouse/relative who is the patient at MDA), sometimes a family member is in the waiting room and the patient is alone in ICU, and sometimes there’s no family member at all.

The patient may be feeling pretty good, be anxious to talk, and be on the upswing. Or the patient may be comatose and/or on life support, unable to communicate. Or the patient may be at any of the variations in between these two conditions. Their prognosis may be optimistic, some variation of guarded, or nearing death.

The family providing support is generally exhausted, stressed, anxious, but coping. Some days are better for the family than others, depending on the course of what’s happened and what’s expected to happen.

When I first started making visits, I have to admit, heading into the ICU was intimidating. Part of it was because I knew the person I was to visit was seriously ill. Part of it was because it was entering an alien space. And part of it was recognizing that the patient and perhaps family I was to visit were in the midst of a crisis, and that although I’d had good training, knowing how to best respond to their needs was still a mystery.

As with most endeavors, experience is a great teacher. I’m much more comfortable and confident these days as I step off the elevator onto the seventh floor. I know that I’m just there as a person to be used by God to minister to others, and that He always steps up to make that enough. And I know how important it is to patients and family to have someone just walk in the door and say, “I came by just to check on you today.”

(More to come)

Originally published in my personal blog

Light at the End of a Tunnel

Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. Anne Lamott

When a loss event occurs, whether it’s death, illness, a broken relationship, a lost job, or whatever, we naturally head into a darker place.

It’s just like entering a tunnel.  At first, we still have some light, because we’re just getting started.  But as we move further into the grief and chaos that accompanies loss, life becomes darker.  It’s harder to see where to go, what to do, because we don’t have enough light.

Hope that an end to the darkness will eventially come is a critical element to coping during difficult seasons.  For those experiencing the season, holding onto hope is a daily challenge.

With hope, a person can show up and try to do the right things.  Without hope, paralysis sets in.

To those of us who sojourn with those experiencing difficult seasons, whether as friends, or relatives, or caregivers or chaplains, helping them maintain this hope is one of the most helpful things we can do.  Having others who have experienced similar seasons listen and then offer an encouraging word of hope is healing.

If you’re in the midst of a difficult season, seek out those who can bolster your hope.  And once you’re out of that season, seek out those to whom you can provide hope.

During this week’s lay chaplaincy visits at M.D. Anderson, I visited two couples who were in very different places.  In both cases, the husband was the patient, and the wife the care giver.  In both cases, hospitalization had been going on for a while.

In one case, the patient had been through a lot of difficult stuff.  He was improving, but was still suffering from some delirium, and really wasn’t able to get up and around.  I met his wife in the hallway, and as she gave me a positive-sounding update, her eyes said that she was worried and exhausted.

In the other case, the patient had also been through a lot, including a stem cell transplant, but was feeling good.  He was up and about, wearing his own clothes, and playing card games with his wife.  Her eyes were dancing, exuding hope that they were nearing the light at the end of the tunnel.  She also gave a positive-sounding update about her husband’s condition.

The first wife was telling me what she wanted to believe.  The second was telling me what she believed.

Their eyes told me the story behind the words, and the eyes also told me how to best respond to them to best support them where they were that day.