By: Angie
I was at work on the surgical trauma floor. It was 1730, almost time for shift change, one of the busiest times of the day. That’s when he started singing….that’s the time he chose. It was a blues-ish type song with long, melancholy notes, with kind of a country-western feel to it. He sung loudly and with passion – “just letting it all out”, he shared with me afterward. It reminded me of those old movies where some poor soul would start singing away all his pains and sorrows. The patient in the next room said laughing, “there he goes again”. People passing by in the hall would stop and stare with a curious look – “what’s with the singing?” What none of these people knew was the fact that this man was about to die.
Anyone standing there as an observer would have simply seen me busily running around as usual trying to get things done – passing medicine, answering the phone, hunting down a doctor, etc – seemingly ignoring the “noise” coming from the fourth room on the right. But I both heard and felt every note. Quite moving, indeed.
The poor guy had a glioblastoma, the most aggressive and most fatal type of organic brain tumor there is and the same type of tumor Senator Ted Kennedy has. Getting diagnosed with a glioblastoma is like getting a death sentence, you generally have months to a year or so to live depending on how much of the tumor they can kill or remove, or in other words, how much your insurance is willing to pay for such expensive measures. Either way, you’re gonna die, whether sooner or later. Basically, you’re a ticking time-bomb. Get your affairs in order and tell everyone goodbye.
He was a very nice man, but generally cynical and careless about his future. They can be like that sometimes, especially depending on what stage of grief they are experiencing. This is the third patient I’ve had with this ailment. The last one, coincidently, was in the very same room as my singing patient. Imagine you’re simply out of town visiting relatives. You start to have some visual problems, go the ER to get it looked at and then told you have 3-12 months to live because you have a brain tumor. That was her story, except she just chuckled, seemingly uncontrollably, every time she talked about her future. I suppose she just had no talent for singing.
I can say that I passed into the physical world at 5:04 p.m. on June 3, 1977 at St Johns Hospital in Queens, NY. Conversely, I will pass away from this world and into the realm from whence I came at a completely unknown time and place. I don’t know when and where. At one level, this is comforting, yet at the same time a bit daunting. How does one get over the emotion one gets from exploring this dichotomy? One just doesn’t think about it much, that’s how. I understand that death is a morbid topic and a prognosis of this type is not common, but just think how you would react if you heard this news about yourself….or a loved one. I have given it much thought, so much in fact, that I may concentrate my future career on palliative care and/or pain management. That’s one of the revelations I’ve gotten from my “horrible” experience as floor nurse so far. And yes, I do know now what I would do if I was in their situation – do you?
