Back in 2005 my first husband was dying with terminal cancer. He knew it was going to kill him but was asked if he`d consider going onto a drugs trial. The consultant told him it wouldn`t save his life and the best he could hope for would be buying him a bit of extra time but that the results of the drug trial would possibly help them develop better treatment for future patients.
My husband had little to gain from the trial but always said if he could help stop future sufferers then it would be worth it and of course he wanted to grasp the small hope that it would give him a few extra months with his wife and children. He was admitted to hospital for intravenous treatment and the drugs made him very ill.
I turned up every day and his sheets would be wet with sweat from the high temperature the drugs caused, nobody would have bothered to wash him or shave him or even make him comfortable. He would be surrounded with used urine bottles nobody bothered to shift and not one person had tried to get any kind of food or water into him. He was literally just left in his bed and forgotten about unless it was to plug him into another drip bag.
I hit the roof and contacted the person in charge of the drug trial (after umpteen attempts to get hold of them I hasten to add) and told them that a man was going through hell to help future cancer sufferers and yet he was being treated like **** and as if the only things which mattered were the numbers entered on his charts and that his lack of care was disgusting. I ranted for ages on that phone until my anger was spent but my heart was breaking for my husband.
The day after I walked onto the ward and found the actual ward sister/manager or whatever they called her, caring for my husband herself and she couldn`t look me in the eye. The day after that I brought him home and the next part of the drug treatment continued by injections given by the district nurses who were bloody wonderful. They came every day even when the drug trial ended and when we were told by the Consultant it hadn`t had any positive effect on his cancer and it was just a matter of time. One of those nurses was with me just a few weeks later when he died at home with me holding his hand and telling him I loved him. Whether he could hear I guess I`ll never know. He`d had a syringe driver fitted and was out of it but it at least kept him pain free.
Once the Gp had certified his death she asked me would I like to wash him, change his pj`s and make him look peaceful in his bed so other family members could spend a short time with him before the funeral directors were called. We did it together, the final caring thing I could do for him and she talked me through it step by step, she removed his syringe driver and his canula, we closed his eyes and his mouth, we washed him, shaved him, changed his clothes, combed his hair, placed his hands together and she treated him with such care and respect and stayed long after her shift should have ended.
Each one of those district nurses fought to give him the best care they could and I couldn`t have asked for more but as for the hospital, well I can never forgive them for dehumanising my husband the way they did. Yes it was a busy hospital , yes it specialised in cancer treatments but I could never call it cancer "care", not in my husband`s case.
scary hey.
xx
