Joanne Clarkson is a poet whose sixth poetry collection, "Hospice House," was released by MoonPath Press in 2023.
Ron Land’s piece “Mea Culpa” in the Spring 2023 issue of Intima expressed for me much the same truth that I was trying to get across in my poem “Drive,” also published in the Spring 2023 issue of Intima. As clinicians, we get so excited by our knowledge, practice, and fascination with the human body that we can miss what the patient needs most.
It is not that Land does not direct his attention toward his patient during their first encounter. In fact, the specialist can describe in detail what the patient is wearing as well as his posture during the visit. It is not that Land does not explain in detail, verbally and visually, what the problem may be. I understand. I have sat with newly admitted hospice patients and their families after familiarizing myself with the terminal diagnosis and gone over in detail all the medication and treatments available to ensure comfort during final days.
And I have, like Land, missed the mental paralysis that accompanies a potentially terminal diagnosis and the myriad details and options for care. The faces stare at you with a mixture of pain and terror easily mistaken for attention.
My poem tells a different story but with the same inherent message. My patient was a very elderly man with advanced lung cancer. He wished to remain in his own home where he had lived for almost 60 years. His son arranged for 24 hour care, some of it from licensed caregivers and some of it from an art student who needed extra money for tuition.
It was the art student, who knew little about the body except how to draw it, who made possible the geriatric equivalent of Make-a-Wish. Neither the son nor I would have okayed an excursion with so much potential for disaster, not to mention liability. But the artist listened as only someone deeply attuned to his subject can. And he took the risk of honoring what was most human.
It was not morphine or oxygen that provided most comfort during this patient’s final days. It was being treated like he was still a person and not a disease. He wanted one last shot at an ordinary pleasurable activity and he got it. Best care is often a blend of science and artistry.
Joanne Clarkson is a poet whose sixth poetry collection, "Hospice House," was released by MoonPath Press in 2023. Her poems have been published in such journals as Poetry Northwest, The Healing Muse, Examined Life Journal, American Journal of Nursing and Beloit Poetry Journal. She has received an Artist Trust Grant and an NEH grant to teach poetry in rural libraries. Clarkson has Masters Degrees in English and Library Science, has taught and worked for many years as a professional librarian. After caring for her mother through a long illness, she re-careered as a Registered Nurse working in Home Health and Hospice.