Hunan Cancer Hospital Hospice was established in 2008. It mainly provides physical care, psychological care and social support for terminal cancer patients with an estimated survival period of only 3 to 6 months. Hospice.
Since its establishment, it has accompanied more than 4,000 people until they reach the end of their lives.
Ms. Xu, who was suffering from cervical cancer, and Ms. Zhu, who was suffering from lung cancer, took this place as the last stop in their lives, waiting for the last bell in the care of nurses and family members.
Xu Shengnan, 63, from Xiangyin, Hunan Province, was diagnosed with mid-stage cervical cancer in 2004. During the first chemotherapy, his son Huang Huai was still studying, and he remembered that his mother had been in good health since then.
The stable life after chemotherapy has been maintained for 15 years. After 15 years, the haze once again shrouded the head of this poor family.
(Xu Shengnan’s husband Huang Renjie is feeding her)
In August 2019, Xu Shengnan developed pain in his left lower abdomen, which was misdiagnosed by the hospital as urolithiasis. There was no sign of improvement after surgical treatment. One month later, he developed multiple soreness and pain in the ilium and both lower extremities. Half a year later, the family went through several rounds before finally confirming that Xu Shengnan’s cervical cancer had recurred and the cancer cells had metastasized.
In April 2020, Xu Shengnan, accompanied by his family, was admitted to Hunan Cancer Hospital for chemotherapy. Huang Huai remembered that his mother had undergone 6 chemotherapy treatments, and it was helpful to the condition at first, but then it gradually became ineffective. The re-examination found that Ms. Xu had multiple soft tissue density foci on the left pelvic wall, adjacent to the iliac vessels, and retroperitoneum. The medical record wrote, “Consider metastases.”
Lucky is no longer as scheduled as it was 15 years ago. The medical record reads: “Continued chemotherapy, but the patient’s pain in many parts of the body is not relieved.” Huang Huai realized that his mother may not be able to live in time. More, and eventually, he applied for palliative care for his mother.
(The nurse at the Hospice took Xu Shengnan’s hand to comfort her)
“Every time she has pain, the cancer cells are metastasizing, and the metastases can’t be cured.” Huang Huai said. When she was diagnosed, she knew her mother would not recover and just wanted to prolong her life as long as possible. He didn’t want to be a motherless person.
After her mother’s cancer recurred, Huang Huai returned to her hometown from Changsha to accompany her. Huang Renjie said that because his son always had to take leave, the unit dismissed him. In order to facilitate chemotherapy, Xu Shengnan once lived in his daughter’s house in Changsha. In November last year, after entering the stage of end-of-life care, she returned to her hometown.
(Huang Renjie is combing his wife’s hair)
Huang Renjie sat by his wife’s bed almost all day. After his wife became seriously ill, his voice was low, and his hearing gradually weakened, and sometimes he could only act in a hurry. His wife was lying on the bed, humming from time to time, her limbs were pale and slender, and he could only squeeze her hand over and over again.
Recently, Huang Renjie has been crying a lot, knowing that his wife’s life is running out. For more than 40 years, the two of them have not been separated. When they were young, they made some money spinning hemp and built the current house. Later, they had children. They stayed in this place all their lives and never left.
Now the house is old and the people are old.
(Watching his wife getting worse, Huang Renjie often weeps)
Children have their own homes, far away from their lives. Looking at his wife, Huang Renjie always felt that she had something to regret, and asked again and again, to no avail. She just stared at him blankly for a long time, muttering sickly: “Just take care of your body.”
She loved to talk like this when she was young.
“I have nothing to discuss in the future.” Huang Renjie lowered his head. His wife is gone, and the most important topic in his life is to learn to live alone.
The rain in the south will never stop in March and April, and Xu Shengnan’s illness is getting worse. Before going to bed every day, Huang Renjie wiped her feet, combed her hair, and gently stroked her hair. The wife needs to take painkillers regularly and quantitatively every day, and he has a bad memory, so he will take the time every time he takes the medicine.Time and drug names are written on small slips of paper.
(Huang Renjie wipes Xu Shengnan’s feet)
Approaching the finish line, Xu Shengnan occasionally lost his mind. When she was sober, she always said, don’t treat it if it can’t be cured, don’t waste money. Huang Huai knew that his mother was not feeling well, and he was even a little thankful that her mother was confused occasionally, so she didn’t have to worry about anything, at least her family would continue to be by her side.
Watching her mother’s body getting weaker and weaker, also happened to Mao Xiaoya.
Mao Xiaoya’s mother Zhu Yuan was diagnosed with lung cancer in May 2019. In the winter before this, she once said that she had back pain, and when she was diagnosed, it was already “multiple metastases in both lungs”. It didn’t work after chemotherapy. At the end of 2020, Mao Xiaoya also applied for hospice services.
(Peng Wanglian, a hospice doctor, instructed Zhu Yuan to take medication)
Zhu Yuan was calm at first, “It’s just that I’m sick,” she said casually, as if those moments of being afflicted by illness could be easily passed. According to the doctor’s request, she took targeted drugs and underwent chemotherapy. Because of the discomfort, she did not continue the chemotherapy twice. Then she went to radiotherapy, but the effect was not good.
“I can’t get up, I have no energy, I don’t want to eat”. When her condition worsened two months ago, she “did not expect it to become like this all of a sudden”.
Mao Xiaoya remembered that her mother called and said that she was on her way to work on the day she was sick. After comforting her mother and hanging up the phone, she cried out in spite of others.
(Speaking of her mother’s illness, Mao Xiaoya couldn’t help crying)
Since childhood, Mao Xiaoya and her mother were like friends. She shared with her mother everything that happened in school when she was studying. In the first year of follow-up visits, my mother was able to go to the hospital for examination and take medicine by herself. Later, she often felt pain and needed someone to accompany her. Xiao Mao also found that, for what he said, his mother changed from a warm response to only nodding, and fell asleep without even making a sound.
“She may be in a better condition today, and you will be happier with her condition. When the situation is not so good, and you don’t even have the strength to speak, you can only stay by her side. “Mao Xiaoya said that her mother weighed more than 130 kilograms before she fell ill, but now she is only 94 kilograms.
Tuesdays and Fridays are the day for receiving medicine, and family members can come and collect free painkillers every ten days. Because of receiving painkillers, Mao Xiaoya had contact with the staff of the hospice.
(Zhu Yuan took a larger dose of painkillers)
Mother took high doses of painkillers, from the first 10 mg to 120 mg. Sometimes she goes to pick up medicine, and other patients’ families are surprised. But if she didn’t take the medicine, her mother’s pain made her feel distressed. “If she didn’t take the medicine, she would fidget, walk around, cry and shout. I believe this kind of pain is not understandable to ordinary people.”
Unbearable, and in order to get more attention from her mother, Mao Xiaoya finally applied for hospice service, “Because cancer is really difficult to cure, it is better Make her last days less miserable.”
(Group photo of Zhu Yuan’s family)
My father is far away in Beijing. To take care of my mother, my aunt and grandmother live in their home. The mother has a poor appetite, and her teeth are also lost due to medical treatment. Every day at 6:00 pm when Mao Xiaoya got home from get off work, her grandmother would turn up the sound of the TV, and the family would eat and chat. It was a rare and ordinary good time.
Peng Wanglian, a doctor at the Hospice Hospital of Hunan Cancer Hospital, said that Xu Shengnan, who was in the hospital bed, told them that she felt very guilty because the disease had dragged down her family.
Peng WanglianThe incident told the social worker Zou Ran, who was responsible for the psychological comfort of the hospice patients. During a visit, Zou Ran told her in Xu Shengnan’s ear, Family came into the world because of fate. In the past, the child was small, and she took care of the child. Now she is sick and the child takes care of her. It is mutual.
(Nurse Zou Ran of the Nursing Home calls to inquire about the patient’s condition)
By repeating these words, they hoped to alleviate Xu Shengnan’s guilt a little.
Peng Wanglian came to the hospice after graduating from college. At that time, she thought that for patients with terminal cancer, the psychological problems caused by the emotional impact may be more serious than the physical condition. Seriously, the mental health profession she studied just came in handy.
In order to alleviate the patient’s fear, family members may not tell the patient directly about their condition, so Peng Wang doesn’t even wear a white coat when he goes out to visit the patient. When she sees patients, she usually chooses to accompany them quietly to let them know that she is not alone on this journey. Peng Wang said: “What we do is a crutch for the patient’s family.”< /p>
(A nursing home doctor, nurse, and nurse prepare to enter a patient’s home)
Peng Wanglian also found that people have misunderstandings about taking painkillers, fearing that they will become dependent on drugs, thinking that “once you take painkillers, it may be the countdown to life.” Some patients will endure as long as they can, and will not accept the pain until the disease has tortured him so much that he can’t bear it any longer.
On the road of hospice care, Peng Wanglian has accompanied the patients for 5 years. She knows that as a healthy person, what she has now is impossible for the patients. The luxury she has, so she wants to bring out the value of this work, and she has also learned a lot from these patients, such as: adversity may also be a landscape in the eyes of others.
Zou Ran has been a social worker for 13 years. Over the years, she has seen different patients who are in a hurry, leaving only reluctant family members. In order to ease the grief of the family members, they will regularly conduct grief counseling for the family members.
“We have a lot of patients who, even in the late stages of their lives, are still reluctant to talk to him about death, just to reassure him that everything will be fine. In fact, the patient and the Family members all know that this is a very pale consolation, but everyone does it involuntarily. We often adopt an attitude of avoidance, denial, and procrastination towards death, and family members do not talk to the patient until the last stage of his life. If we talk earlier, patients will have more time and energy to do some things that they want to do but haven’t completed.” Zou Ran said.
(List of patients in hospice of Hunan Cancer Hospital)
Zou Ran believes that the significance of this job is to make people no longer fear death, “because on that day everyone will know that there is someone who can help you and accompany you on the final journey. You go down together, you are no longer alone, afraid, nervous.”
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