On-call with a new moon
In contrast to the last time I was on-call on a weekend, today was relatively calm. Or at least it is so far. There were about six referrals on the University side and only one on the Riverside side of the hospital. Two of the patients had discharged by the time I got to them, one was asleep (both times I checked.) The morning worship went acceptably well.
I thought I’d be out of there at 5:00 when I was done with all the visits by 4:00. I was paged at 4:50 to go to a patient who was asking for a priest. I have to assess whether the need warrants paging the priest when he is not on-site.
The patient was in his 50’s with end stage renal failure. He had had a seizure the day before and fell off the commode and bruised the left side of his face. It was practically black…no blue, yet.
He also suffered from schizophrenia with auditory hallucinations. And he had expressed quite vehemently his wish to end his life.
I sat with him while he shared that his 5th (?) wife “Vicky” had committed suicide because he told her he didn’t love her. She used his pills and alcohol. And he asserted that he needed to be with her. As a nominal catholic, that meant that he had to committ suicide too, because if he waits for the disease to take him, he might not go to limbo or purgatory or wherever it is that suicides go to in the catholic cosomology.
He also wanted me to read to him from the Bible. I didn’t have a Bible with me, but a prayer book with some psalms. He doesn’t like the psalms because “the psalmist is always beseeching God for something” and he didn’t feel like he wanted to beseech God for anything except death.
So, I went and paged the priest (he’ll see the patient tomorrow afternoon) and found a Bible and proceeded to read to him the first 16 chapters of Genesis before the smell of his uneaten dinner and my dry mouth made me end the visit. I prayed for him and offered the Our Father, which he wanted to pray but didn’t remember the words. I told him that it was OK, to just say the words he did remember.
I don’t know whether I helped. All I could think of was my friend Jonathan at 4th Ave. Blues. As I was letting the unit secretary know that I had charted the visit and that the priest would be in tomorrow and that I had left the Bible with him, he called and asked for pencil and paper.
She asked me why he would want that? The only thing I can think of was either a suicide note, or a last will and testament. Same thing really, when it comes down to it at this point.
Got home a little after 7 and ate a bagel with peanut butter for dinner. Now I think I’m going to sleep and hope I don’t get paged tonight.
Peace.
— — —
A year ago (or longer) on This Journey…
-
You sprained your what? 2008
Disappointment 2007
What’s a hammer for? 2007
— — —
A year ago (or longer) on This Journey…
-
You sprained your what? 2008
Disappointment 2007
What’s a hammer for? 2007
— — —
A year ago (or longer) on This Journey…
-
You sprained your what? 2008
Disappointment 2007
What’s a hammer for? 2007
