Pain Management

Hospice care is not giving up on life, it is giving in to the reality of your circumstances, passing on painful curative attempts that are not working and giving over to a level of comfort care designed to relieve your pain and control your symptoms.  It is, in short, a terminal degree of pain management in the terminus of your life.  Hospice care enhances whatever time you have left by managing the pain, discomfort and stress of your incurable condition.

The components of hospice include medical, physical, emotional, situational and the area of my professional expertise, spiritual.  As we attend to each of these areas, providing a level of care not possible when engrossed in the rigors of curative care, the patient is able to find relief from the pain of physical symptoms, emotional stress and spiritual assault.

The bottom line of hospice is pain management and while we provide an array of medications, durable medical equipment, physical care, emotional and spiritual support; the single greatest factor in pain management is the outlook of the patient.  It is where and upon what the patient focuses that will largely determine the comfort level  they experience.

Jesus put it this way, “The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!" (Mt 6:22-23).  In other words, if we focus on the right things, we will be encouraged and our spirits lifted.  If we focus on he wrong things, we will be discouraged and our spirits dampened.

If the patient focuses on the interruptions to life, the oxygen tanks, the medical bed, the assisted baths, the seeming parade of medical staff that suddenly invades their home, they tend to suffer more and be comforted less.  If, on the other hand, they focus on the amount of care and attention they are receiving, the professional level of the services, the genuine care and concern of the hospice personnel who are attending, the patients feel better.

When you get down to the brass tacks, people who focus on themselves, their wants, their needs, their comfort level, tend to notice pain and discomfort the most.  People who focus on what others are doing, how others serve, how others go about the business at hand, they tend to notice pain and discomfort less.

I remember when my son, William, was being born.  His mother and I had gone through Lamaze training, which taught the principle of finding a focus point outside yourself in order to control the pain of childbirth.  Using no medication, my wife endured the pain of childbirth focusing on a smiley face taped to my hand and the sound of my voice, both outside herself.

When we are attending to others or paying attention to them, we are less aware of ourselves and therefore the level of pain and/or discomfort we would otherwise be experiencing.  Ultimately, when we focus on God in praise, we have the least awareness of self.  Paul and Silas were doing that while locked in stocks awaiting the worst (cf. Acts 16:25).  Jesus prayed to God and for others as he hang from the cross (Lk 23:34).

Paul instructs us to "set our hearts on things above, where Christ is...[so that] the peace of Christ [will] rule in our hearts" (Col 3:1-15).  The ultimate pain management is to focus on God's presence, his promises, his power and his peace.  Jus' Say'n.