Aug 15, 2023
by Melissa C Palmer, LCSW, ACHP-SW, APHSW-C, JD
Living with a serious illness creates challenges to access to all healthcare, in particular palliative care. The intersection of being unhoused and an older adult creates a larger chasm to cross in order to receive the care and healing when seriously ill.
The first time I met Jamie was as a resident in my primary care clinic. She had some concerning symptoms, and we were both worried she had cancer, but neither of us said it. Instead, we traded bad jokes about Chicago traffic. “Why do they call it Midway airport? Because by the time you get there, you’ll be mid-way to your final destination.
For many years I have made it my habit to read and reread Walt Whitman’s poems in the spring. I know that it is time when the Leaves of Grass sprout and the now I have lilacs, not in my dooryard, but across the street. Last week I noticed lilacs were blooming and perfuming the air and I went and found my Whitman Reader.
Professional burnout is not a new term. Having been in existence for decades, “burnout” has become antiquated and no longer holds the impact it once did regardless of the enormous toll it plays on nurses lives.
I met Ms. L at perhaps her lowest point. She had been struggling with mandibular cancer for 2 years and had undergone every treatment imaginable. The chemotherapy made her so weak that she could no longer stand.