Dying of Laughter
As I was chasing a mouse around my dad’s house with a bedpan, I realized I was not the typical hospice nurse and this was not going to be the typical hospice experience. We had laughed too hard for him to be dying. And yes, I got the mouse safely outside. And yes, I managed to grab the clean bedpan, I think.
When my dad decided after four months of battling after his bone marrow transplant that he wanted to stop treatment and come home, I wasn’t sure what to expect. As a writer, I’ve written about hospice before. But that had been for a website for a healthcare client, now I was on this side and I was way beyond the bullet points of “care when you need it most.”
Coronavirus had taken away months of me being able to visit my dad in the hospital. There were times I couldn’t reach him, he was too sick to pick up his phone, and thankfully a nurse held her own phone so he could hear my voice. So, there was no way, I wasn’t going to embrace my last few days with him.
My sister and I were going to stay with him, night and day and make the most of the time we lost. Right away we nicked named ourselves “JK Nursing.” I was the jokes, she was the care with a k. The learning curve was sharp. The first night it took us about an hour to change his sheets and bed pad. My sister going through glove after glove as diarrhea became our enemy. And as the night wore on, my tiredness turning to giggling then laughing my ass off at my sister, because I had decided she was in charge of poop, I was in charge of sheets and helping my dad move. And this made my dad laugh. And that’s when we decided there would be laughter.
My dad loves jazz, so we’d crank it up while we were wiping him down. Quickly we divvied up the tasks. I was in charge of medicine. And the first time I went to place his pill on his tongue it slipped and hit his shoulder. It looked like his mouth was a circus game and I clearly didn’t win a stuffed animal. So then every time it was medicine time, my dad or sister would hum a carnival tune.
Everyone talks of last meals. Well, my dad hadn’t eaten in four months. His nutrition had all been IV. So, when he had a few requests we made it happen. We had a mango water ice party at midnight. We bought him coffee ice cream — and while I was doing laundry, I came back to put the lid on and he had eaten the whole damn thing. Yes, it’s a good thing we had brought so many gloves and bed pads home from the hospital. Last night he drank a Frappuccino while laughing and watching curb your enthusiasm — his favorite comedy. And as we’re all laughing, I’m thinking is it ok to be having so much fun as my dad is dying. Are we doing something wrong or right? The world and news are so dark right now. And yet within these walls, there is light. So much light. I don’t know how many days, he has left. But I do know, there will be love and laughter until the very end.
