Palliative Care is Love

I have been in palliative care (PC) since my graduation from the nursing school and it has been fourteen years into my career and I learned that the true definition of PC is love.

I learned through PC we meet the patients and families at a vulnerable stage in their lives and the PC providers become their boat as they paddle across the river of uncertainties, unexpected events and emotional ups and downs. We the PC team become the patients and their family’s safety net and savior. We will do our best to listen to their whole person needs and we will incorporate those unique needs into their care journey and what is possible.

The PC journey is an emotional journey not only for the patient and their families but also for the PC team because we are time and time again faced with the impermanent nature of life. The PC team is reminded again and again about our own mortality and this experience helped me maintain my compassion and love for the patients. I learned the PC is accepting the patients and the families just as they are and not trying to mold them into something idealistic. I acknowledge nobody is perfect and there is no such thing as a perfect patient, rather the PC approach accepts beauty in all beings and their story. The patients and their families come from all walks of life: rich, poor, educated, illiterate, multicultural backgrounds, different social structures, with their individualized views on life and their spirituality. No one person is the same from another and no one lived experience is the same as another. Such abundance of beauty in people who are faced with life limiting illness(s) and no one journey is the same with the disease.

The PC is love because we advocate for our patients, we work towards becoming a change agent to help people understand the PC and its benefits in their health, and we work tirelessly to enhance the capacity of the PC in our organization and society. Yet we do all of the above with gentleness, loving kindness, and in harmony with all. I think PC is the most beautiful thing that can happen to someone with life-limiting illness and their families.