Hospice Tororo offers some tender love and care

When we arrive at the hut we find our patient in a very poor condition. She is lying on a small mattress as if already dead. The husband tells us that for over a week now she has refused to eat or drink. He says that they try to force her but she just keeps the food in her mouth and now she has become too weak.

We look at the woman and think about what to do. The question we ask ourselves is, does she refuse the food, or is the family refusing to give it to her?  

This might sound inhuman, but we have seen it before. In a poor family with many mouths to feed, they have to make a difficult choice. Do they give a sick and possibly dying person food, or a young child who needs the food to grow and has a future ahead of them?

Our patient is wasting away, all skin and bones. But just a week ago she was able to wash clothes and joked around with us when we came to visit. Now, she tries to talk but her voice is too weak for us to understand her.

Her husband comes to bring porridge for her. She can’t sit without support, so we instruct the husband to sit behind her and then Amoris, one of our nurses, feeds her. Our patient eats, slowly and little, but eating until she lets us know she has had enough. Then she starts to cry, quietly the tears roll over her chicks and she tells us she wants to die. No medication anymore, she just wants a little food and water to give her a good taste in the mouth and she asks for her husband to stay close.

For a moment we are just silent. We have to make a judgment. Is this really the end of her life, or is she just tired and giving up, depressed but not really ready to die?

We decide that Amoris should go out to talk with the family, listen to them and counsel them. Meanwhile I stay with our patient. Sitting on her bed, she puts her head on my shoulder and tells me, in a beautiful way, how much she has enjoyed her life. She doesn’t stop telling her story until she falls asleep half an hour later.

I am touched that she told her life-story to me knowing that it will end soon. Comfort is sometimes the only thing we can give, all we can offer her is some TLC – tender love and care.