Coming to grips with mortality

Working in hospitals makes us become so much more aware of our own mortality. It's difficult not to empathise too much with patients, or want to become too involved in their lives.

A patient I saw on the ward was an example of this. She was a 59 yo woman presented to hospital after a dizzy and fainting spell. I was asked to review her due to her unsteady gait, and decreased equilibrium responses. During my initial assessemnt, I felt a real connection with this lady- we got on very well, and joked a lot. I recommended she use a zimmer frame, whilst medical testing was being completed to work out the cause of her sudden onset of symptoms. She shared her history with me, she just left her job to start her own business from home. She had put down her dizziness to overwork from the amount of work she had put in to setting up her business, working up to 18 hour days some days.

However, her symptoms continued, and she did not appear to be making any improvements. However, I built a stronger and stronger rapport with this patient, and looked forward to my daily treatment sessions with her.

Then at the ward meeting, the medicos told me news that shocked me. This woman had lung cancer, which has metastasised to her brain, and was given maximun of three months left to live.

I felt really uncomfortable with seeing her after I knew this. What do I say to someone is such a situation? Our friendly comraderie had gone, we lost rapport.

Looking back, I feel we lost rapport on both sides of the therapist- patient relationship. I couldn't believe such a diagnosis could be given to such a young and active person, and this lady was coming to grips with her prognosis. I don't know how to prevent this in the future, but this was my initiation to the unexplainable events of life and death that are an everyday occurence in hospitals.