0 0 8C Wednesday, January 5, 2011 The Statement PERSONALSTATEMENT ttatement JANUARY 5, 2011 LOOKING DEATH IN THE FA ONNE U s WO I R17HG H HOS PIC E BY JENNIFER XU F irst it was Gertie. After that followed Katherine. Then May who grimaced at me from the second I pulled out my copy of Alice Munro (and who eventually request- ed my transfer, one week before she passed away). Jean who liked to read Nicholas Sparks, Lucille who I never got to meet. And then there was Ruth. I started volunteering in a hospice the summer of my freshman year. I needed something to do that wasn't centered around schoolwork or The Michigan Daily, and I always had an ,,affinity for old people. These are the questions I usually get when I tell someone where I go every Friday: Why do you do that? How can you stand to be around all those dying people? Or, in a rare moment, "God bless you." Well, God needn't bless me, because I cer- tainly didn't come into the position with some high-minded mission. I've never had anybody close to me die, and I haven't the slightest idea on how to alleviate the suffering of mankind. My aim was simple: I just wanted to make a friend. I was nervous when meeting my first patient, a boisterous 82-year-old woman with dementia, disorienta- tion and an oxygen tube affixed to her nose. "I'm here to visit Gertrude," I announced to nobody in particu- lar. "Oh, Gertie," one of the nurses smirked at me, pointing to the kitch- Statistics say that patients die within CE six months after being admitted to hospice care. At the nursing homes that I frequent, most patients pass within two. One of my greatest fears when I first started volunteering was that I would get a lot of heavy ques- tions about God and morality. But most patients I've talked to are very frank about their situations - they're en door. "Good luck with that." prepared for death to come at any I saw the bright red throw blanket moment and are not afraid for it to before I could see her face. When I happen. Somewhere along the way, got closer, I could feel her eyes on me, they've already figured it out. suspicious, but not unfriendly. Then, That day, I spent nearly five hours with Gertie. "One of my greatest fears when I I barely even remember first started volunteering was that what we talk- ed about - I would get a lot of heavy questions desserts, the sexiness of about God and morality." Christopher Plummer, how before I could introduce myself to much we hate music - the kinds of her, she cut me off. "Where's my random conversations you have with cookie?" she demanded. your friends late on a Thursday night. It takes a long time for a person to She had to go to the bathroom in the admit that he or she is terminally ill. middle of my visit - which she did in front of my face, as I watched two nurses flip her on her side and wipe the mess away with paper towels as soon as it came out. "Jennifer, do you like the movie?" she cracked. Later, after I tucked her into bed, I realized that I had no idea why I was so scared to see Gertie in the first place. Lying there underneath the white-frosted covers, she looked so small and vulnerable. "I feel like I've known you forev- er," she said to me in a brief moment of seriousness. That was the last time I ever saw her. I think the biggest shock to me when I started volunteering was that my patients actually died. I know, that should be obvious. What do you expect if you work in a hos- pice, right? In movies, the patients. look sickly and weak about three months before the event actually happens. My mind flashes back to Melanie Wilkes's death speech in "Gone With the Wind." She takes like 45 minutes to talk to each and every one of her friends before she i , a passes away. But real deaths sneak up on you so quietly, so suddenly, t ga , markthat it doesn't seem possible. In one a a moment, Gertie was an exuberant force of nature, making jokes about a r pooping, screaming at nurses to find S y t nGOT SOMETI Write a Personal Sta EMAIL CKLARECK@h FOR MORE It her cookie. In the next, she wasn't. "They're trying to get rid of me, but I'm still hanging on," my current patient, Ruth, likes to tell me. Ruth has a pretty severe form of demen- tia, and on most visits she can't rec- ognize me from the week before. But we've gradually fallen into a routine: I introduce myself. I compliment her on her hair (which she gets done at the salon every Thursday at 2 p.m.). We talk about poetry. There are days where I come in and she is so full of pain that it hurts her to even speak. During these times, I pull out my copy of William Word- sworth and read to her selections from her favorite poems. It seems to calm her down. But sometimes, she can't even bear to listen. Geriatrics presents a different sce- nario than conventional medicine. Usually, a person who comes to the hospital is suffering from an "illness," which the doctor can deal with by fun- nelingthese symptoms into a "disease" and treating that disease with a "cure." The heart of geriatric care is about follow-up. Palliative care is fashioned not in order to treat symptoms, but to look at the big picture: morphine drips, psychological and spiritual treat- ment, pain management, anything that makes their lives a little easier. If a 20-year-old is sick, that illness is treated as an abnormality, a battle tobe vanquished. If an 8O-year-old displays those same symptoms, the symptoms are attributed to the natural processes that gradually wear the body. Past a certain age, doctors can't stop the inevitable deterioration of a human body - blood vessels harden, arthritis sets in, bodily functions decay. But a hospice can make the transition more manageable. Within the few short months I've been a part of the hospice commu- nity, I haven't figured out anything about myself or what I'd do in the event of an emergency, and I still have no idea what the "suffering of mankind" is. But I know one thing: On the last day of training the hos- pice volunteer coordinator told me, "Your job as a volunteer is not just to provide care and support for your patient in their last months of life, but to be a new friend." - Jennifer Xu is an LSA sophomore and a senior arts editor for The Michigan Daily. HING TO SAY? tement for the Daily. MICHIGANDAILY.COM NFORMATION