This job is hard.

The truth is, this job is hard. It's really, really hard. It's not the skills or techniques that are difficult, but something more. It's getting to know families and then not being a part of their lives anymore. It's liking a client and hoping simultanously that they die soon so they can be free from pain, but hoping they don't so you can spend more time with them. It's recieving compliments for the work you do when you know that you are barely hanging in there. It's wishing that more people would accept hospice so you can keep your job and help others, but hoping you don't have new clients because your tired and don't know if you can handle another death this week or month.

This job is hard and it gets to me sometimes.

I had a 'scare' a week or so ago where I thought for sure my client was going to die soon. It freaked me out a little bit and I told a friend about it. He replied "Well, I hope your wrong". He was well meaning, I know, but it didn't sit well with me. It's a tricky line, hospice. I would not want to be in the kind of limbo that my current clients are in... they are waiting to die, not getting better, but not really getting worse either. I can't say they have a poor quality of life because they are very well cared for and surrounded by people that love them... but they are not participating in life either. They don't converse, they can't move themselves, they can't feed themselves. I don't wish them death, but I do wish them something better.

But these are not my family members, it is not my place to wish anything for them, and that makes this job hard.