Human Connection
Her name is Ms. P.
Ms. P is the sweetest ninety-something female with a personality that is dynamite ! She was admitted to my unit couple weeks and I’ve been managing her nutrition care since. Without going into details about her condition, I’ll say she presented with an acute need for medical attention. A lifelong independent woman who has been fighting a life-threatening disease for decades, I think it’s safe to say at this point she won.
The most cheerful person I had interacted with all day… well it actually may be even safe to say all week! At one point she had me thrown off and made me question who was the patient and who was the provider!
She is the sharpest and oldest patient of mine, who taught me profound life lessons in the short amount of time we had spent together. With nearly a century of wisdom, she unselfishly shared significant parts of her past, including some of her darkest times along with the light that had followed. Someone who has lived through major historical milestones of our country as a minority and held on to her faith and pride in the face of ugly injustice. She told me she prays to God to be born the same gender and race in her second life 🙌🏻 She proudly said, “I love myself so much, and you should love yourself too”. When I told her she looked good, she looked me dead in the eye and quickly replied, “I know”, with a smirk on her face.
She believes her sole purpose in life is to encourage people to love the life they live and find the silver lining around every cloud. … and damn she is REALLY good at that. Like she said herself, she is powerful and she can make a positive impact on the trajectory of her life and the lives of other. Despite her physical condition, she has proven that we are capable of controlling the life we live directly from our very own mind.
I left her room feeling I had owed her something, so I decided to write this to share her magic with as many people as I could because I know all she would ever wish for is to spread her purpose of positivity and compassion.
Of course she would be my last patient on a Friday evening after a v e r y long week following a full moon and Fall equinox. This made it very clear to me that the Universe has its ways teaching us these greater lessons through the interactions with each other, and to have faith that we’ll all be all right.