There’s a Vibe in the soup … and then there are wind chimes, and the nature of anticipatory grief
I have been thinking a lot about the nature of grief. Fortunately, since we are not getting out a lot, I am not able to bore anyone out in the ‘real’ world with my thoughts on the subject. And to whom would I talk? Everyone loves Our Hero and they are grieving too.
It was the wind chimes at the palliative day care centre which brought this business of what the psychologists, and the ‘wanna be’ psychologists, call the ‘grieving process’ sharply into focus.
Irrational as it may seem, I had a distinct moment of sheer rage when I saw some perfectly innocuous bamboo chimes futilely dangling between two pillars at the discreet entrance to the centre that I will call ‘The Willows.’
I have been vaguely aware of ‘The Willows’ since it was built just over a decade ago. I have also been vaguely aware that it is something to do with cancer care. And I have to say that I have always rather liked its ‘user-friendly’ wooden exterior which is designed to look as unlike a hospital as they could manage on a limited budget.
It is a brave little building, founded on the best of intentions. It is partially funded by Macmillan and initially came into being through the very hard work of members of the local community. I salute them.
I have often passed the building on my way to get on with ‘normal’ life, perhaps with an unconscious hope that it would be a building I would forever be able to pass by.
But here we are, Our Hero and I, pulling off the main road and driving into the car park. Apparently, Our Hero’s pain control can’t be managed by the GPs’ surgery where they have no one trained in pain management. It is good old Macmillan who has to step in. Because we have chosen the bucolic inconveniences of Cold Comfort Cottage, there is nothing resembling a palliative care team that we might have had if we were nearer a larger hospital. But we do have quite a large hospital near us and, I confess, I don’t understand why there is not a palliative care team there …
As you can imagine, I am grinding my teeth before we have even parked the car.
And, suspended at the entrance, are those wind chimes. They seem to my (metaphorically) jaundiced eye to mark the boundary where you leave the world of medicine and step into the realms of the soothsayers. It seems a case of 'abandon all rational hope - but here are some wind chimes to transport you to some other, better, realm...'
To confirm my prejudices, and fuel my fury, amongst the potted plants in reception, there are the leaflets offering ‘Art Therapy’ (hah!), aromatherapy, hypnotherapy, Reiki, acupuncture (etc, etc) which are kindly offered free for the first six sessions (thanks to the ‘Friends of the Willows’) and then at £15 a session after that. I think I even see some Reiki crystals hanging in the windows. But I might have been hallucinating, and I am not the one on all the morphine.
And this is all fine, I know. Given all the ‘alternative/complimentary’ paths we have been investigating on our own, I am not in a position to be critical. But I am furious with it all, none-the-less.
We have our interview with the Macmillan nurse and Our Hero looks more and more uncomfortable in the vile red chair as I vent my various irritations about the oncologist, the lack of care, the lack of attention paid to Our Hero’s gentle complaints about his pain, the mention of radiotherapy and then the withdrawal of radiotherapy … And I find myself, yet again, having to apologize for sounding ‘a little cross’.
As we pull away from The Willows, I remind myself of what a friend had said when I mentioned to her that I seemed to be furious about everything. She told me that people often are angry when they are ‘grieving.’
That was a surprise, I can tell you. I hadn’t realized I was grieving at all. Our Hero is still very much with us. I thought I was just angry because we seemed to have to be fighting at every point since Our Hero’s terminal diagnosis.
But I have been scrutinizing my anger since then, and have been doing a little research on the subject. Anger, I learn, is one of the feelings you may have when you are living with someone with a terminal illness. It is part of the gamut of emotions that you may feel when anticipating a death and, not surprisingly (psychology is so often not subtle) is named, ‘anticipatory grief’. It goes with all those other emotions you may expect to experience when someone dies.
I also read that anger, can be a mask for fear.
Well, I’ll buy that – up to a point.
So, as we drive out of ‘The Willows’, I examine the anger I experienced on seeing those innocent wind chimes, and on seeing the offers of Reiki, aromatherapy and so forth. Briefly, I wonder whether I am angry because this seems to me a very real step towards the predicted end. This is, indeed, very frightening. It could be partly that.
Or it could be because the NHS cannot even provide the necessary pain management expertise in our area and so have to depend on a charity. This is really not good enough.
However, a CT scan (was it two months ago that he first mentioned the pain in his back?) is, at last, happening. Radiotherapy is being mentioned again.
In the meantime the angry, grieving, meddling wife is going to have to go back to work.
The coffers at Cold Comfort Cottage are empty.
