Companionship. Social connection. Friendship.
These are all crucial pieces to our mental health… our quality of life and our longevity on this planet. They are paramount in living the”full” and “fulfilling” life that many of us continuously strive toward. A month or so ago… in one of my weekly mental health companion meetings… I was asked if I would be interested in becoming an “end of life companion” for a guy that had recently been diagnosed with a terminal illness and would spending his remaining days here at T.I. in “short stay” aka the compound hospital. I was not told… or they did not know… very many details outside of the fact that whatever his illness was… he was given a year to 18 months to live and he was not permitted to leave the confines of short stay at all… no walks outside… no sunshine on his face… no interacting with other guys on the yard…no chow hall… nothing. My immediate thought was how absolutely horrific it is that we (as a society) find it acceptable to keep terminally ill people locked in a low/minimum security prison for the remainder of their days as opposed to sending them to home confinement in order to complete their “sentence”…. more accurately… pass away before their sentence is complete. But… that is how the world works at the moment so… on to my next thought. “Do I have the emotional capacity to be a competent and helpful companion to a dying man while constantly dealing with my own mental battles on a daily basis in here??” This was quickly met with the reality of his situation… how terrible it must be for him to learn the news of a terminal illness and then immediately be transferred to a sterile… hospital/office type environment with little to no social interaction. To live out the rest of your days… in prison… away from family and friends… without the ability to see your loved ones because you cannot leave short stay to go to the visiting room and they cannot come to short stay so the only way to communicate with them is via standard phone calls. Horrible. Heartbreaking. I decided that I didn’t think I could live with myself if I did not agree to become this man’s end of life companion… so I agreed.
I had no idea what to expect… how I would actually help the man… I don’t have any real experience with end of life care besides the passing of loved ones that I have dealt with in my own life but I have never been the person providing the direct care in those situations. I came to the conclusion that the best thing that I could do for him is to just be there with him… talk to him… ask him questions… see what he likes and what he doesn’t like and try my best (within the parameters of our situation) to make every meeting with him elicit a smile or two. I met with David (not his actual name) for the first time a few weeks ago on a Thursday afternoon and walked into short stay fairly nervous… or at least anxious. I wanted to be a glimmer of light in a dark situation and the last thing that I wanted to do was to make his life even one degree more uncomfortable but here I was… so forward I stepped. I asked the guy on duty where I could find David and he pointed me in the direction of the 3rd room on the right. When I got to the door… which was slightly cracked by an inch or two… I lightly knocked and opened the door in order to peak my head in and introduce myself. As my head entered the room… I saw an older man… I would assume in his late 70s or early 80s… looking tired but not “on his death bed” type of look… his eyes were open and he seemed to be day dreaming about something as he had no book… no newspaper or TV to look at… he was just staring. But his stare caught my attention because it wasn’t blank…it wasn’t as if there was nothing going on behind those eyes… to the contrary… I was taken aback by the fact that I could almost see him imagining something… seeing something play in front of his face… it was fascinating and I really did not want to disrupt his flow but my head was already in the door so here I go…
“Hi David. My name is Zach and I was hoping you would be okay with me hanging out with you for a couple hours this afternoon. You comfortable with me coming into your room?” No response. “David. Can you hear me?” No response. I slowly enter the room and sit down in the chair to the left of David’s bed but decide to give it a few minutes before saying anything else. David continued his “dream” with absolutely no regard for my presence in the room. Again – the strange part about this is that it did not feel like he was ignoring me or in some sort of drug induced trance… it was almost like walking into a room in which someone is painting or playing an instrument and you want them to know that you are there but do not want to interrupt the process… all the while… they know that you are there as well but their art is more important at the moment than talking to you. So… there I sat. For about 15 minutes before I hear a cough and a low voice say… “If you’re going to be sitting there… can you at least see if they will give me a goddamn cup of water?” Okay – here we go… “Absolutely David. You want ice?”…. “No.” I proceed to grab him a few cups of water and head back to the room. Over the course of the next 2 hours… I asked David questions about himself… if he liked any board games or card games (hoping we could play something that would break the ice)… what type of books, magazines or newspapers he enjoyed reading… if he wanted me to bring my tablet in and watch a movie with him at some point. I got him talking and found out that he enjoys Car Magazines (awesome – I have a few of those)… travel magazines (huge win – I love travel magazines and have a bunch of those) and that he would like to watch a movie but he doesn’t want to have to share headphones with me so only if I don’t want to listen as well (all good Dave… it’s your world). We spent the next couple hours with each other… him answering my questions… me doing my best to provide any semblance of comfort that I possibly could and when I needed to leave because of yard recall… I told him that I would be back within a couple days with his magazines and my tablet so that he could browse the movie selections for his SOLO movie watching experience.
I got back to my room and immediately gathered up some car magazines and travel magazines that I had stashed away and even though I wouldn’t be able to go back and see David for at least a couple days… I fired up my tablet to browse the movies and try to nail down a couple that I thought he would like. I felt good about our time together… I felt like I would be able to help David in some small way… make the remaining days of his life on this earth just a tad better….
But I was never able to help David any more after that first meeting that we had together…
I was unable to visit with him until the next week and when Thursday rolled around and I was going to see him… there was an incident at the facility and the whole compound was locked down… and then I was informed by the head of psychology when I went in there to try to schedule another day to see David that he had passed away.
That year to 18 months of life expectancy turned out to be just over 2 months. I believe that David decided he was done living… at least he was done living in the way that he was going to be forced to live here at T.I. And in some ways… there is something beautiful about that… that he made the choice… that he was in control of his final decision. I guess I will never really know what happened at the very end of his life… and I am certainly still processing all of it but I know one thing with absolute certainty… I am very happy that I met that man… I am very happy that I was able to spend time with him and I hope he was at peace at the end.
Experiences such as these really smack you in the face with some perspective…
Stay Healthy. Stay Active.
As always – tell them you love them… no one knows what tomorrow may hold.