Texting at the Lights

Lately I've been posting about my job as a hospice nurse. There's such a wealth of material that occurs daily, I could have written ten books by now, but sadly most of the stories cannot be told because they involve real people's protected health information. However, I have found a way to write a little about the bizarre, profound, and strangely funny world I work in.

Take this morning, for example. It’s Saturday and I don’t work Saturdays. But this is the conversation that took place between me and my daughter right before we left the house.

Jess: Ready, mom?
Me: Yep, wallet, keys, let me just see if my patient’s still alive. [Checks work phone.] Yes! Ok, good to go...

One of the trials of being a hospice nurse at an oversubscribed understaffed hospice is you never have enough time to do everything. Thus, you have to get creative. This involves activities that sometimes push the boundaries of legality: like texting at the lights. Now we have this great internal text tool that is HIPPAA compliant. It’s called Tiger Text. The advantage of Tiger Text is you can text anything about a patient and it’s all completely confidential, a closed system, and the texts disappear after 24 hours. So you don’t have to worry, like you do with regular text or email, that you will someday have to stand up in court and defend what you typed before a judge, a jury of your peers, and some irate family member of the decedent. You can just say it like it is. The disadvantage of Tiger Text is that it’s a really lame app with an over-zealous autocorrect system and no intelligence. So it rarely learns your frequently typed words, and yet it tries desperately to ‘correct’ the most ordinary phrases with rather extraordinary results. Thus, although you might say it like it is, Tiger Text will probably say it like it...isn’t.

Consider this recent text exchange between me and my supervisor:

Me: Chat with you by phone when i have time?

Me: I

Me: You

Supervisor: You have time? I have time? What??

Me: when you have time. Damn tt.

Supervisor: Sure. And Paula will do that visit.

Me: Puck c!

Me: Punch k!

Me: Picnic!! This day is like a picnic, I was trying to say.

Me: Must stop texting at the lights!

Why Tiger Text would take the word “picnic” and decide that what I really wanted to type was either “Puck c” or “Punch k” is beyond me. But that is the kind of thing that happens in Tiger Text world and everybody learns to live with it. We all learn a sort of insanely irrational and yet deeply intuitive translation skill that allows us to continue seamlessly with our hectic days. 

So next time my supervisor texts me “Please fix ogden enchilada” I’ll just go ahead and fix that open encounter.

Hospice Nurse Rocks Out

People sometimes say to me: “I don’t know how you do what you do, it must be so depressing.”

I tend to minimize the depressing nature of my work when I respond, because really, who in their right minds would choose to spend their days around dying folks?

And yet, I can always say to them with complete honesty that I love my work.

I LOVE my work.

Why do I love it so much?

One of the reasons is that I get to rock out on the freeway between patients. Our hospice doesn’t have a facility, we visit our patients wherever they live. So sometimes I have a 20 minute drive between patients. Even when there’s only a 5 minute drive, there’s always time for a little loud, sometimes very loud, music. It’s how I decompress after an hour of paying close attention to the business of death. I get in my car, which is really my office, as well as my restaurant, my sanctuary, and my safe space, and I crank up the music as I pull away from the House of Death.

I have bluetooth, so the music starts as soon as I turn the ignition on. I have a playlist that I cycle endlessly. Something for every mood. Sometimes it’s U2’s “Miracle of Joey” or John Newman’s “Love Me Again” or even (if it was a particularly depressing visit) Nathaniel Rateliff’s “S.O.B.” Nothing like a drinking song at top volume at 10am. I wonder occasionally whether the folks back in the House of Death hear this sudden blast of loud music as I pull away. If they do, I hope it brightens up their day a little, rather than speeding them on their way.

Sometimes I need something a little more philosophical. If I just had a psych-socially profound visit with some family member - maybe a husband whose wife of 40 years is close to death and I asked him what he plans to do with himself after she goes; or maybe a son or daughter who has flown in for mom or dad’s passing and has a ton of unresolved stuff to work through - I may need Joe Purdy’s “Wash Away.” 

“I got troubles enough, but not today, cos they’re gonna wash away, they’re gonna wash away

And oh, I’ve been crying, I’ve been crying, but oh, no more crying...”

Or maybe I just visited a patient I really love, someone I’ve become deeply connected to and they just took a turn for the worse. I’m looking at the trajectory and I’ve seen it before, I know pretty much what the next days or weeks hold, and I need to come to terms with that myself before I get to my next patient. I need to allow myself a few minutes to grieve. I need a song that’s guaranteed to bring to the surface those tears that are lurking just below it. So I’ll put on Gregory Alan Isakov: The Universe, or Words, or Amsterdam. Crying at the lights. It’s either that or eating lunch or texting. A hospice nurse never just sits there waiting for green.