What’s Your Number?
Captain Ron’s VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE
March 2010
“The Guardian” is a great movie if you like water. I’ve nearly drowned twice so water isn’t something I seek out where recreation or employment is concerned. I don’t avoid it but it’s something I can take or leave. I’m not a great swimmer and I’d just as soon stay out of harm’s way. Thank goodness there are people who feel otherwise, such as those who serve in the United States Coast Guard.
The movie is about a veteran rescuer who works the Alaskan Gulf, played by Kevin Costner. Nearing retirement he has taken a position teaching new recruits. One of these recruits, played by Ashton Kutcher, notes that all the swimming records at the training academy are held by Costner’s character. Young Kutcher takes it upon himself to see that every mention of the old-timer’s name is replaced and a new record time posted.
The seasoned rescuer patiently watches the young hotshot perform with athletic excellence as indeed, the bar is raised by the cocky recruit. The veteran knows that the only test that counts is in the cold, angry waters of the North Pacific off Alaska’s coast where the Coast Guard’s work is done.
As expected, the new recruit loses his arrogance rather quickly when faced with life and death and the possibility of going out on a rescue and not coming back alive. After a particularly gnarly day the kid asks the old man, “So, what’s your number?” He has already broken ever record the teacher held in training. Now he wants to know what record the instructor holds in real-life situations. Costner casually answers, “Five.”
“Five?!!” responds Kutcher. “You only saved five people in 25 years?” To which Costner answers, “Why would I want to keep track of the ones I saved. It was my job. I only keep track of the ones I lost.”
A good death for a Hospice patient is one in which the person is at peace, the body is quietly relinquishing the breath of life and the sleep of death comes in gently. Almost all Hospice deaths are ‘good deaths.’ It’s what we do. It’s what we train for. It’s or job. Like the Coast Guard rescuer, our goal is to have zero in the other category. We don’t keep track of the ones we serve who die at peace (actually we do; we’re required to report total numbers of patient served to State and Federal agencies). It’s those rare ones who have a difficult time that bother us. We know families are also in anguish when a loved-one is struggling or in pain.
The human body is complex and some of the things that go wrong are beyond our control. It may make us feel like hanging it up and getting into some other kind of work. But we remember that there are still others who need us. We talk it out as a team. We support one another. We look at what we might learn so that next time there will be a better outcome. And we’re good to go until the next ‘not-so-good death,’ and we go through it again.
I often wonder why people who do heroic work keep doing it after a particularly deflating experience, when it seemed that nothing went right. I’m a chaplain to fire fighters/EMS and I see how an unsuccessful rescue affects them. There are things beyond our control that will frustrate even their noblest efforts. Yet they will go out again the next time they are ‘toned-out.’
The Coast Guard is still there patrolling the borders of our nation, including the cold, icy Gulf of Alaska, where rescues are frequent and treacherous. Hospice nurses, social workers, aides and chaplains will continue to stand or kneel beside the beds of the dying. The ones we lose will always be there in the back of our minds but we set them aside and go about doing what we’re called to do. The numbers don’t matter. Each person is an individual and the team will give its very best effort. When you or your loved one needs us, we’ll be there.
Rev. Ron Jetter, Executive Director
Lower Valley Hospice and Palliative Care