Children, Optimtisim, and Palliative Care

Dealing with death is never a fun subject. I actually thought I could get use to human loss while volunteering at local hospital's Special Skills Unit, but I was wrong. It can be heavy even when you are not close to a patient. When being around patients that are actually waiting their time, some would talk about the past, regrets, and in some cases tell me they accepted death. Also some will be bitter about the dying and view it as unfair deal. I never worked with children that were dying and I cannot imagine the emotions their families and health care-takers would go through. I found an article on Cnn.com that was about that a children’s doctor from Ohio that had deals with dying and serious ill children. She stated it is rare for children to get bitter about death because they do not have the sense of entitlement. I do not know if I would fully agree with that statement but I have heard testimonies that children can be the most optimistic and courageous of all patients. I would admit this is phenomenal.

The article goes on in promoting palliative care which makes the children comfortable before dying. It makes it clear this form of care does not euthanize the child by all means, this care is like a hospice for seniors. I do notice that this doctor encourages this idea if the parent does not want to further treatment for their child for whatever reason. It would be easy to get mad that the parents for wanting to stop the treatment for their child but is really wrong? I realized that time between a child and a parent will always be brief because children grow up fast. And if the child has something incurable that medicine can not fix, it would fit that the parents should spend more time and make them comfortable. Taking more tests can shorten the length of possible memorable interaction between the parent and child. The doctor stated near the end of the article that she does not see her job depressing. I honestly interested to know if she is a believer or not. I enjoyed her last statement, "I know that I can’t save everybody’s life, what really matters to me at the end of the day is that these families feel that they have done the best job that they can for their child". I couldn't agree more.

the Spaniel