With the slightest of touch...

Merely a month or so after I started working for hospice, I had my first "what I am I doing here" visit. The gentleman I was to see that day lived out in the country, past a lake, curving around the fields, and down a long gravel driveway. It took me close to 40 minutes to get there from town. I was always nervous visiting him because the first time I was supposed to see him I was two hours late.

Arriving that late was certainly a blow to my confidence, but it wasn't really my fault. The directions I received were atrocious, he lived out in the middle of nowhere, my cell phone didn't get any reception to call for directions, and it was winter so the roads weren't that great either... None the less, I felt a certain amount of guilt showing up that late, and I never quite shook it everytime I drove out there.

A few weeks into the visits, C. told me he wasn't feeling that great ever since he fell the day before. {REDFLAG} "fell, when and how did you fall..." {I tell myself not to freak out, but I am not a nurse and I know this is a serious thing. These are the kind of things that we are supposed to look for and try to prevent. This man was in his 70's and living by himself on a farm in the middle of nowhere. } He continues to tell me what happened and do what I'm supposed to do, call the office. The nurse that answered was in a meeting and told me to help him make an appointment to see his dr. So that's what I did. The appointment was made for the next day and a ride arranged. I finished with my visit and left.

The next week, his daughter had come to stay with him and stood and stared at me the whole time I worked with her father. It wasn't that she didn't trust me, but more that she didn't know what I was there for at first. C. Complained of neck pain and wanted me to work it harder. I knew I wasn't supposed work deeply with the elderly, so I did my best to make his neck feel better with out using too much pressure... but I started to doubt. This woman was watching every move I made, I still wasn't sure I did the right thing about the fall, and I still felt like I had screwed up with this gentleman from day 1.

All my fears were realized the next day when I was called by the director of the Hospice department. "C. has a hairline fracture in his neck. What happened with him at your visit" {ALARM! What! I worked on a man with a broken neck! Or worse, I'm the one who broke it! Oh god o God o GOD}

"Well, I massaged his shoulders..." I told her about the visit and I told her what I did after he reported the fall and that the nurse had told me to do. " I see. I will have to talk to the Dr and the Nurse about this further, but I don't think you should see him until further notice" {Oh god oh god oh god}

I lived in panic for two days. My mother, a hospice nurse, told me I did nothing wrong, and that it was most likely a pathological fracture (a break that just occurs on it's own due to illness. Often happens when cancer reaches the bones)..

..but still... what the hell was I doing here.

The reports came back and it was show it was not my fault. It was like my mother said. I did everything right (mostly). I should have gotten him to the dr sooner, but I was following the nurses direction (as I am supposed to) and the fracture was due to the cancer reaching his bones, which we were unaware of a the time. I was given advice on how to massage in that situation and continued on with my job.

That situation was very freakish. I think had I not doubted myself from the very beginning, I would have made better decisions, but that's only conjecture. I have found that you usually don't have clue what you would do in any traumatic situation until it actually occurs.

It gives me the shivers sometimes to think about how I thought I had broken a mans neck with the slightest of touch, but in the end, it was a part of my education. The kind you only get by doing and that can never be learned completely by reading it in a book or blog or what have you.