I keep on getting asked: don’t you have palliative care to help you out? As when you have palliative care, all should be smooth and easy…
Oh yes we do have palliative care and oh yes we really need all the help we can get as this metastatic liver cancer is really sucking the energy out of father and out of his care givers and care takers.
No room service
So the palliative nurse comes normally at 20.00h, today she jolly well comes at 19.00h. Why I ask? Well, because today your father is the only one that needs my treatments, so I come early.
Great, but as you know the routine is: we start eating with father around 18.00h so father will be finished at 19.30h (yes, for those who never saw a terminal liver cancer…) and we have half an hour extra time in case something should not go according to plan.
Can you tell a not much eating cancer patient to stop eating because the palliative care nurse wants to tuck him in 1 hour earlier, so she can spend the evening in the arms of her hubby? (she lives 5 minutes walk away from fathers’ house for crying out loud!)
Yes we have palliative care, but:
- they work for the money,
- they are not charity,
- they have their own life and
- they have their own time-schedule,
Therefore palliative care is far different than room service and unfortunately: father has no schedule!