As I was volunteering at the University of Michigan Hospital my supervisor was reporting to me some bad news. He was telling me about some of the little children who had recently passed away on the 7th floor Mott. These were children that I had previously sat with and played games with while volunteering. The news came as a shock to me, and made me think of so many things at once. Over the past few years volunteering on this floor I had never been told when patients passed away, either my supervisor decided not to tell me or the patients and doctors were having good luck. However, this time the reality of my entire experience volunteering finally hit me and put things into a new perspective. Never before did I consider that these children could pass away. I always enjoyed playing with them and trying to keep them optimistic that I seemed to have convinced myself that they would all get better, like I had been trying to convince them. The saddest part of this reality seems to be the fact that most of these people that are passing away are just children, some as young as 3 years old. This just made me question life, why do these poor innocent children have to experience pain and death so young, what does this accomplish. I started to get so frustrated with the idea that I decided to talk to my supervisor, the Activity Therapist of the floor.
He said that with all of his years working on the floor that was the one question that he has spent countless hours trying to figure out. He feels that when this situation arises it is because the children are sent to teach their parents a lesson. He further explained that in more than the majority of cases the families of these children are brought back together by their sick children. The families are reunited and retaught love. I thought this was a nice explanation and a good way to accept the situation. I then wondered if and how doctors tell these innocent children that they are going to die. How would they understand what it meant and why would they tell them. Well the Activity Therapist explained to me that most children just know. They don't say they know they are actually going to die, but rather they see their bodies as different from other children their age, and can feel when they are tired and certain parts of their bodies don't work. They understand in this way that their body is failing and not working. Sometimes doctors explain to them that they are going to be angels, and their parents ask their children to watch over them in heaven. This news seemed both remarkable and a huge shock to me all at once. I don't understand whether or not it is best to deliver such bad news to children and how children accept the news and then focus on bringing their family closer together before they pass away. The whole conversation and experience seems unbelievable and something that has been on my mind. How do you perceive this information?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Amanda,
ReplyDeleteI agree with Nehal's take on this issue. The following may be a side note, but I'm going to go with it. When I took an human evolution class here at UM, one of the concepts that was brought up was the idea of "non-overlapping magisteria," a concept developed by Stephen Jay Gould (probably the most important concept I learned in that class). From what I remember from Gould's argument, he said that evolution and creationism can exist side by side because the whole point of religion is to explain the fate of the soul, while the study of evolution focuses on the fate and development of the body. If we truly believe that there is life after this, it doesn't matter what happens to our body, as long as you understand that the body is just a transient vessel. I think that, although in different terms, this is what doctors try to teach children, no matter what the doctor's or the patient's religious views are. Physicians shouldn't lie to the children because kids know when they are lying and then the children don't trust adults or the medical system. However, if you can explain to children that their body is not really their identity, but it is their soul that matters and that this can live on after the death of the body, then children feel comforted and are also able to trust/believe what the doctors say since they aren't misleading them.
In my encounters with hospice patients, this idea of a mind-soul disconnect seems to comfort many people. Of course this is a different subject than death in children because death at a later age is expected, but the same concepts apply. The people who seem most comforted are those that separate the physical from the spiritual. However, one of the most important elements in this level of acceptance is coming to terms with this separation, something that adults have much more time to come to terms with.
Finally, I think it is emotionally best to always have hope for your patients. I know that the people I see weekly are terminal (although I had trouble really understanding this concept until I saw a patient last week in the last hours of life after seeing her a few weeks earlier in a much more stable, cognitively aware condition), and will likely die within the next 6 months, as hospice care is intended for that bracket of the population. However, it is much better to have spiritual hope as opposed to physical hope for these patients. Telling these patients that their body will recover or that "everything will be alright" is not comforting to people who know it is not true, particularly if you are referring to the physical world.
James
I thought you might be interested in this article following your blog. I know it's not the academic take, but sometimes, I set that aside for the personal:-)Noah also talks about becoming an 'angel'.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.clickondetroit.com/news/21522646/detail.html#story