Could this happen to me?

Last night I tossed and turned as thought about what my mother had told me the day before. My mind kept coming back to the situation and going over it my head, while my stomach churned with anxiety at the thought of dealing with it in the morning.

My mother had brought me news related to one of our clients, but it was not about her exactly. It was about her daughter-in-law, who was one of her care takers (along with her son). The DIL found out that she had metastic breast cancer this week and it was too late to operate. She is 40 years old with two school age children and a mother-in-law slowing dying in the back room. Her husband, the son, is due to leave for Iraq soon.

This affects my job only in that our client may be moved to a different care takers home, and that may be out of our range of visits. This is not what I was thinking about all night. What I was thinking about was the awful situation this family has been put in. If the treatment doesn't work, she may well end up being one of our hospice patients. Her mother-in-law may outlive her, because metastic breast cancer is nasty business. And all these thoughts bring up a strange fear in myself. For some reason I am nervous about seeing my client this week, though my client status has not changed.

I started thinking about why it is that Hospice hasn't been has hard as I thought it would be when I started the job. It occured to me that all these patients I see have accepted, more or less, that they are dying and they aren't going to make it. They are taking steps to ease into it, and hospice is one of those steps. It is easier to face death, when the person you are seeing is on the same page. Like it or not, it is also easier because my clients are all old (between 75-90). I expect people of that age to be dying.

This DIL is not one of my clients, but I do see her each week when I visit my client and all of a sudden the anxiety I've been expecting for the last year has popped up. There are some reasons that I suspect: She is closer to my age, she wasn't suspecting breast cancer (she was feeling tired, so everyone is in shock), and she hasn't accepted death yet. She is going to try and fight it; of course she is, and good for her... but what if she fails. What if I see her each week when I'm treating my client and she isn't getting better. What do I say to her? What can I do for her? What if she gets worse and her husband is sent to Iraq and is killed and her children become orphans? I can see myself looking away trying not to meet her eyes.

It's ridiculous how my mind can blow things out of proportion in this situation. How can I face my clients each week and not face her? I think the answer to this question lies in another question I ask... Could this happen to me? I've got a while before I grow old, I can face that. Surprised by a deadly cancer at young age... that could happen at any time and it scares the shit out me when I have to face it.

The anxiety before a situation is always worse than the situation itself. I will go and see my client and it will be fine. No one is looking for answers from me. I will do what I need to do, including a hug if she needs one. It is another step in facing this fear.