NO VISITORS
No visitors in long-term-care facilities. It doesn’t matter if they’re COVID-free. This is for their protection.
Some exceptions may be made for end-of-life.
End-of-life?
Like when someone is non-responsive, with labored breathing, bedbound, with days left instead of weeks? But unable to say goodbye? Or I love you? Or give a last hug? What’s the best hope for that final farewell anyway, with a mask on the whole time?
But if the patient still looks healthy, still walking and talking, embracing and forgiving, how will I explain to the rest of these isolated, angry people why that family gets to come in and not theirs?
What if they’re not really dying, but they’ve lost 20 pounds since all this started…maybe from eating alone in their room with plastic silverware out of disposable containers on jerry-rigged tables that their wheelchair can’t quite roll up to, food stains sprinkled across the carpet that was never intended to be eaten over… or because they can’t remember how to eat if they don’t have someone else to mimic and motivate them. What if they need help just to get out of bed now? They only ever walked to the dining room, and that’s been closed from the start. Muscle atrophy in the geriatric population happens so quickly…that could count as end-of-life, right? But won’t the kids be devastated to see this new Dad, so different from Dad in March?
Surely just being 103 counts as end-of-life? But she’s pretty stable. More stable than the 88 year old. Aren’t they all kind of at end-of-life? Maybe I should let everyone in…even if letting them in kills someone else’s family member?
Well, I thought Grandma was dying, but now she’s not dying fast enough, so…sorry, no more visits? I’ll call you when she’s dying more efficiently…or on her last breath? And assume I can guess which breath that is?
Can all six siblings come in? At once? That’s more visitors than have been in this building in months. Do I make those siblings decide which one gets to be with Mom when she takes her last breath? And then feel sick to my stomach when I realize I’m just relieved to have one decision that isn’t mine?
How did we come to require such a heartbreaking gatekeeper? How did I come to be such a heartbreaking gatekeeper?
What if I choose wrong?
NO VISITORS