Demons and Delusions

The first time I went in to see I. she almost refused my service. She didn't need a massage. She had better things to do. She was upset with her doctor in fact. She was mad because she had been complaining about this pain in her jaw for months and just now they told her that she had cancer in her jaw and that it was terminal. Maybe she should change doctors and get a second opinion. I convinced her that since massage was included in her hospice care that she should accept my services.

Soon, she looked forward to my visits, though she could never remember when they were supposed to be. Often she would complain. She would complain about the care she was getting (which wasn't bad), she would complain about getting too many visitors, she would complain about not getting enough visits from her son, or that her hair looked a mess!

She always had something to complain about and was really a difficult and hard to manage patient, but I liked her anyways. We talked a lot about things that made us happy. She was so proud of her children and thought they were beautiful. Angel food cake was her very favorite and she became almost giddy when someone brought her a piece. Often she asked if I could stay for tea and have some cake with her.

After a few months she started forget more than what time my visits were supposed to be (which were around the same time every week) and then she started to nod off before I arrived. Then she would still be in bed when I arrived and though she was embarrassed that she hadn't gotten out of bed yet, even though she was too weak to do so. I wasn't too concerned about her because I knew this was going to happen at some point.

But then... then she started looking forward to my visits. Not because I was going to give a massage, but because it was me that was visiting. She seemed so relieved that I came I realized that there was something more to it than I had thought. Maybe it was because I was someone she recognized when she had begun to forget, or maybe because I reminded her of her daughter and we had similar names and haircuts.

I came in around my usual time and knocked on the door. "I., it's me, the massage therapist from hospice." She opened her eyes and looked and after a minute registered that someone was there. I sat down and took her hand and looked into her eyes. Her face was thin, about a third of the size it had been when I first met her. Her jaw on the right side was huge in comparison, but that was where the cancer originated. She opened her eyes as I took her hand. I could tell that she recognized me, but wasn't quite sure who I was. "it's me, the massage therapist from hospice" I say again.

"Oh" she said. She looked away for a second and then open her eyes again. She looked at me closely, but didn't say anything more.
"I'm here to give you a massage" I reply, as I always do, because I'm never sure how much my clients will remember, even if I've been seeing them every week for months on end.
She looks at me again and says :I'm don't know"
"what don't you know, Irene?" I ask.
"I don't know what I"m supposed to do" she says.
"You don't need to anything, you just lie here and relax while I massage your hands like we did last time" I reply with my standard response.
"I don't know what to so she says' as she pulls me towards her closer. She wants to tell me something. Something important, I can tell.
"I don't know what to do, but I can trust you, you won't try to do it"
"What is it, Irene, that I won't try to do?
She pulls my arm and thusly my ear closer to her and I lean in to hear her.
"I'm afraid" she says
"what is it that you're afraid of?" I ask. I expect an answer about her upcoming death. She has brought this up before. "what will it feel like?" "how will I know?" I didn't have the answer then, as I didn't now. I'd never been near death, or felt I was dying before. I had no clue. I didn't know what she needed to hear.
"I think they are trying to kill me" she says while clutching my hand and pleading to me with her eyes to save her from her cancer that has spread from her jaw to her brain and caused her to believe that her impending death is being orchestrated by her caregivers and not by her disease.

I tell her she is safe with me and not to worry and she relaxes a bit and nods off to sleep.