The clinical care partner came to me. Joan’s blood pressure was 82/60. Her oxygen saturation was 77% on room air. I called the geriatric internist to let him know. He ordered a STAT chest x-ray. I told him that the patient did not want any more treatment and was asking for
Hospice. He told me he would talk to the patient’s daughter. Within 10 minutes,
he called back and cancelled the chest
x-ray and told me to make the patient a “No Code/Comfort care” and refer her to Hospice. I went to Joan and told her that her wishes to die peacefully and with dignity were going to be respected. She smiled broadly and said, “You
know, I’m hungry for the first times in weeks. Can I have a turkey sandwich?”
I found out later from the internist that Joan’s echocardiogram showed
her “mitral valve was wide open” and that she was in complete heart failure. He was not able to treat her because of her weight and low blood pressure and that essentially, fluid
was “pouring into her lungs”. In other words, Joan was dying, just like she said. After a brief discussion, I was able to convince the internist that her pain did indeed warrant something stronger than Tylenol and she was started on Morphine. She went home with Hospice care the next day.
Is there a lesson to be learned in this? I think sometimes we get so involved in practicing medicine that we forget to practice dying as Plato advised. Sometimes, that‘s all it is,
just dying. Not depression, not failure to thrive, just the end of a great and wonderful existence that doesn’t need to be treated, but instead celebrat