A Funeral Procession?

Being assigned - willingly - to a double-basic EMT ambulance for a commercial provider, I often find myself being a transfer shuttle. I'm okay with that; after 15 years there isn't a whole lot that I haven't done at least once before, so catching hospital discharges and hospice transfers with a sprinkle of BLS emergencies is just fine with me. Today, though, I found one of my transfers seemed more macabre than simply a ride to another facility.

Mind you, in the past month that I've been back in the company's system status management plan, at least 50%, maybe more, of my patient encounters have been transfers from a home or a hospital to a hospice care center. There are a lot of great places for patients who are in the final transition of their lives in our area. Today, the routine is somber as usual, but there was an unusually high number of family members present at our patient's bedside. They were kind and very helpful in removing the boxes - yes, boxes - of flowers from the room, and even went so far as to help move furniture so we could get better access to their loved one. 

Once our patient was transferred and secured to the stretcher, the journey began. Due to the attention being paid to the patient by the family, we did the best we could to keep them involved in the move, including loading every one of them onto the elevator while I quickly descended a stairway to meet them on the ground floor. One of the children accompanied my partner in the back as we pulled out of our parking space...and three cars pulled in line behind me.

Like most transfers to hospice, this one was considered fragile, and we proceeded as if our patient were made of glass. Our slow procession wound its way to the facility at speeds that would make a snail qualify for the Indy 500. At one point, the cars behind me turned on their hazards, and a thought popped into my head: is this a funeral procession? By all accounts, it probably could have been, considering our destination. With this thought, instead of moving quickly, I maintained my pace in order to ensure the family could stay with me.

After arriving and helping the staff gently transfer the patient, my partner and I took our leave. We were stopped and thanked by each family member for treating their loved one as tenderly as they would have. Between my thoughts while driving and their obvious gratitude at our simple efforts, I couldn't help but feel sad for our patient and the family. In reality, it was most likely one of the last trips their loved one will ever take.