"I remember a young patient of mine who had cancer," says Ana Kovalevska, a nurse at the adult hospice of Vilnius Blessed Father Mykolas Sopočka's home. - After learning this, his girlfriend left him the same day. The boy fell into a deep depression, he did not allow his parents, friends, or relatives. But later, when the wounds and pains appeared, the guy was still forced to let me in, because his wound needed to be bandaged every day."
Nurse Anna went to the boy every day for three and a half months, (including Saturdays and Sundays), bandaged his wound, and communicated with him.
Later, when the boy was admitted to the hospital due to increased bleeding, he visited him there every day as well.
"When I visited the hospital on the last day of his life, the guy said to me: 'Anna, when I die, please support my parents,'" the woman recalls. - I did as he asked - I still communicate with his parents, I know their entire family history. I recently cried a lot while watching a video made by his parents about a guy's life. In the video, he's still so funny - laughing, dancing, on vacation... I can't believe that this great guy is gone..."
She wanted to be a nurse since childhood
Ana claims that she dreamed of being a nurse since childhood.
"The nurse was my mother's sister," the woman recalls. "I've seen her work up close since childhood and I really wanted to be just like her."
Ana was born in the village of Sudervė, near Vilnius. Already in her early childhood, it was necessary not only to nurse her, but also to save her from death.
"I got pneumonia when I was two years old," Ana remembers. - However, the doctor at our village dispensary didn't detect inflammation... She just didn't listen properly to the lungs, didn't perform an X-ray... My mother called an ambulance only when I had already passed out and started suffocating..."
“Your child is dying!… Where were you before?!” the doctors shouted to the mother as they brought Anna to the hospital.
Then the doctors told Anna's mother that there was no hope for the girl to survive. Anna was admitted to the intensive care unit of the hospital, where she remained unconscious for several weeks.
"God is protecting me," Ana says through tears. "I always knew that..."
After a month and a half in the intensive care unit, Ana recovered and gradually began to recover.
Soon the girl could sit up, and then she started walking.
Invited to work in a hospice
"I first came to the hospice in the same way as many people come there - to look for help," recalls Ana. - I was brought there by pain, illness, hopelessness... I was looking for help for my friend's father who was suffering from cancer. I only knew about the hospice that it was founded by such a sister Michaela (the founder and director of the hospice, Sister Michaela Rak), who miraculously helps people there...
Sister Michaela received Anna, listened to her, showed her the hospice.
"I visited the entire hospice with my sister, I saw how people live there, how the employees work," recalls Ana. - To be honest, the feeling was extraordinary, even shivers went through my body..."
The conversation with Sister Michaela was successful - Anna's friend's father was admitted to the hospice, and Anna's sister Michaela offered her a job as a nurse - the hospice was in dire need of nurses at the time.
Home hospice for adults
Soon, Ana was already working as a hospice inpatient, and even later she became a general practice nurse at a home hospice for adults.
"The beginning of work at the hospice was difficult for me," recalls Ana. - Every day you see human pain, despair, death... Surviving death is very difficult... You get used to the patient, he becomes like your close friend or even a family member, so his departure from this world is always very painful for me. I always go through a lot and cry for each of them... However, I never thought about leaving for another job, I felt that my place was in the hospice..."
Ana is very grateful to her sister Michaela for teaching her to accept death.
"Anna, it's not death... it's a way out..." her sister Michaela used to tell her. - Man has finished his earthly life and has gone to the next life... And in the future we will definitely meet him there..."
Differences between public hospital and hospice work
"My first job in the inpatient hospital did not require constant contact with the patient," says Ana. - That was not possible. There you are on duty XNUMX hours a day - and two or three days off. You close the doors of the hospital and you can forget about those problems, because it is a big hospital, there are many doctors and medical staff who will take care of the patients, give them medicine or transfer them to another department, and you may not even see the patient again...
And it's different in a hospice - here you have to work with patients 7 days a week and 24 hours a day."
According to Anna, while working in a hospice for adults, relatives of patients call her XNUMX hours a day. These people are very worried, they have many questions about the care of the patient, increasing the dose of medicine, how to position the patient correctly, how to feed, etc.
"Sometimes I get really painful calls," recalls Ana. - I was recently woken up by a call at three o'clock in the morning. A mother called to say that her son had just died... We both cried, I comforted her as much as I could..."
The woman admits that after coming to the hospice, her life and priorities have changed a lot.
"I realized that life is very fragile," Ana shares her thoughts. "Now I try to live every day as if this were my last day..."
According to the woman, work in a home hospice is now her first priority.
"My children are already grown up, and my husband has come to terms with my work," the woman jokes. - We used to have various dreams: to earn more money, to travel somewhere, to buy something... But now this is not the most important thing... The first place for me now is helping the sick, supporting them, human relations, love..."
Home Hospice Team
After half a year of working as an inpatient at Vilnius Blessed Father Mykolas Sopočka hospice, Ana started working at a home hospice for adults, which provides help to the sick at home.
Nurse Anna says that the home hospice team, which includes a doctor, a social worker and a nurse, usually comes to the patient's first visit.
The task of the hospice team is to fully assess the patient's condition and the scope of help he needs (by the way, hospice services are free for all patients).
"Usually our main tasks upon arrival are medical," says Ana. - We usually find the patient in great pain, he is nauseous, he is suffocating, he is not eating. Of course, we immediately take measures to help him as soon as possible..."
After emergency medical services, the home hospice team takes care of other necessary help - the patient often needs a psychologist, physiotherapist, or clergyman.
After the first visit, the doctor of the hospice team assesses the patient's condition, prescribes medication and determines other treatment measures, corrects the pain.
If it turns out that the patient needs infusion therapy, medication, bandaging, wound care - then the nurses of the home hospice team join in.
"Currently, we have two home hospice teams, they work independently," says Ana. - According to the doctor's instructions, we assemble and load a large medical bag and with it we visit patients from morning to night, give them medicine, bandage wounds, give advice..."
According to Anna, she is most saddened when she first visits to find a patient who has not had anything in his mouth for a week, is neglected and neglected.
It is really difficult to help such a person.
"It is very sad that not many people know about our hospice," says Ana. - Not only residents, but also family doctors. I often receive calls asking who we are, what our services are, how we work... Many interested people are very surprised to learn that our services are free for patients..."
After intensive therapy for oncological diseases, the patient is discharged home
Nurse Ana shares that she is very sad that after intensive oncological treatment, a person is told that he will not receive any more treatment, he is discharged home and left to his fate.
"Oncology patients then think that this is the end of their life... that's it... full stop..." says Ana. - Therefore, it is simply necessary that all Lithuanian doctors, and especially family doctors, know more about palliative medicine, know what services the hospice provides, offer them to seriously ill patients, give them at least some hope..."
"Of course, the documentation for the doctor is huge now, he has to fill out a lot of documents for each referral," says Ana. - But that is exactly when the doctor's benevolence and desire to help is needed. Personally, at the request of patients' relatives, I have repeatedly had to call family doctors and ask them to appoint hospice services for their patients. Relatives complained that they themselves do not request it and do not find opportunities to receive such a referral..."
The attitude of the patient is very important
Ana says that the patient's attitude towards his illness is a decisive factor. It is absolutely necessary to ensure that the patient has the hope to live longer, has the will and strength to fight.
The patient's physical condition and ability to resist the disease largely depends on the patient's psychological condition.
"Sometimes, I come to the patient, and he tells me: "The doctors said that I have two weeks left to live..." - says Ana. - I don't understand how it was possible to say that to a person?... Everything is in God's hands, he will live as long as he is allotted... The doctor doesn't know how much longer he will live... When I arrive, I always say to the patient: "Just don't get discouraged, it's definitely not the end." … We will still fight, not everything is so bad here…”
According to Anna, relatives of patients often ask her what they can do to help their seriously ill family members.
"You can only help them with your love," I answer them, "with nothing else," says Ana. - Sit next to them, hold their hand, tell them how much you love them and how precious they are to you..."
Hospice activities during a pandemic
According to Anna, the pandemic has somewhat adjusted the hospice's activities, but it has not stopped or reduced the provision of its services to patients for a single day.
"During the pandemic, it became more difficult to conduct examinations at the polyclinic, it is difficult to invite a doctor to the patient's home to examine and assess him," says Ana. - It is also not easy for us to stay with a mask all day, to constantly disinfect medical bags and the car... However, we know that the help of the hospice cannot stop for even one hour..."
Ana says that it is not very safe to come to a patient's home, because in addition to the patient there are also outsiders, relatives who have not been tested for covid-19 and the risk always remains.
"I remember not so long ago I came to a patient's house," says Ana. - He was looked after by a relative. However, when I looked more closely, I saw that the relative felt very bad, swayed to the sides, almost collapsed several times... I checked and examined both the patient and the relative. The latter had a fever, high blood pressure... I immediately called an ambulance for him..."
According to Anna, in the evening she received a call from the hospital that the patient's relative was diagnosed not only with the covid-19 virus, but also with pneumonia on both sides.
However, neither the patient nor Anna contracted anything.
Hospice inpatient
Ana says that it is not so easy to get into the hospice inpatient unit, because it is not big, and there are quite a few patients who want to get into it.
Therefore, sometimes you have to wait in line, and while waiting, use the services of home hospice for adults.
"While waiting for hospice hospitalization, patients receive home hospice services for adults," says Ana. - In all cases, we try not to leave patients alone, because they are very afraid of it. Patients and their relatives often face a serious illness and pain face to face for the first time, they don't know how to care for the patient, they don't even know how to put diapers on him..."
The patient himself wants to stay at home as long as possible, until the unbearable pain finally makes it impossible and he is forced to go to a hospice inpatient unit.
"Oncology, cancer - it is primarily pain, - says Ana. - Great pain, which is not always manageable... It is precisely in such a case that the help of professional hospice inpatient staff is needed..."
How to live with a serious illness?
The home team helps not only the patients, but also their family members, who are also often upset, broken and even despairing because of the serious illness of a loved one.
According to Anna, she once talked with the wife of one of the patients about how she would continue to live if she found out that she had a serious illness.
The patient also heard this women's conversation.
"Before, I really never thought about how I would live if I got seriously ill," he said. - But now I know this... At the moment, I live every day like an acrobat who walks on a tightrope and must only look ahead... I know that if I turn around or start looking around, I will immediately fall... Therefore, I do not think about my past life or about what's next - just living for today..."
Life today
"We really want our Vilnius Blessed Priest Mykolas Sopočka's hospice to be not the only one in Lithuania in the future, so that there are more hospices, so that severe palliative patients can receive more help and feel like family in them," says Ana. - Maybe in a slightly different family, but in a family..."
Anna remembers well how one young patient was with her for a while in the home hospice for adults, and then she was transferred to the hospice inpatient unit.
After some time, the mother came to the hospice inpatient unit and asked for permission to take the girl home for an hour to eat berries.
The doctor signed the release and they both left.
But it didn't take long for her to return. Tears were streaming down my mother's cheeks.
"What happened?" Ana asked worriedly.
"We hung out, ate berries, and then my daughter says to me: "Mom, take me home... to the hospice...!"
The mother hugged her daughter and both cried.
The women realized that the past would not return, that the girl's native home was now somewhere else. Her new family is also elsewhere.
"We try very hard to make our hospice a real home and family for those who are seriously ill and in terrible pain," says Ana. - We try to ensure that they are never alone with their illness, fear and despair. We are helping them with all our hearts as much as we can… while we can…”
Vilnius Pal. Fr. The Mykola Sopočka hospice provides free professional medical care and nursing to children and adults terminally ill with oncological and other diseases in hospital and at patients' homes. Please donate your 1%. from GPM Vilnius Pal. Fr. Mykolos Sopočka Hospice.
