oh come all ye faithful

today i cared for a woman on comfort care. she had been transitioned to comfort care yesterday because her prognosis is poor. but strangely, the team of medical professionals doesn't know EXACTLY what's going on with her. they cannot REALLY explain her decline. yes she has HHV6 in her cerebrospinal fluid. and yes her scans show substantial changes to her gray and white matter in her brain. but we cannot explain away WHY this happened.

but the WHY plays no part in how i care for my patient. and so, i did my very best this morning to make her comfortable and ensure her safety. i had been told that she was fairly unresponsive; that sometimes she says yes or no. but that her responses were not reliable. but i continued to talk, to explain what i was doing. and when i was done with her bedbath, i decided to tidy her room. now that our goals of treatment had shifted, there were things i could remove. and ALWAYS, ALWAYS there are things to straighten, dispose of, recycle, and organize. which the OCD in me enjoys. so i indulged...

my tidying revealed a CD player and christmas CDs. i decided to put one in. the first one was VERY peppy and almost felt inappropriate for the situation. so i changed it instantly to something more appropriate. christian christmas carols. the very first song to come on was "oh come all ye faithful." and although i haven't been to church in years and christmas has lost some of its meaning for me in the spiritual sense, i knew every word. and to my surprise, so did my patient. my dying, very sick, confused and nearly unresponsive patient began to sing. i felt flabbergasted. and amazed. touched. and saddened. and so, i sat with my patient, held her hand, and despite having a not-so-beautiful singing voice, sang every word to the entire song with her, for her, and to her.