Hospice: Greendale House Palliative and Hospice Care
Name of patient: Claude
Written by: Anthony Manion
Diagnosis: The whole family is cared for.

“They understand immediately when you say, ‘I’m struggling.’”

Claude is 51 and lives in Kensington, Johannesburg with his wife, Elizabeth, and daughter Melissa. He worked for many years at a butcher shop, and was closely involved in his family’s everyday life. After he was diagnosed with cancer, he could no longer work and his health deteriorated.

Melissa was in high school when she learned her father was ill. She says his cancer changed not only his life, but hers and her mother’s as well. The family found themselves making repeated trips to hospital and struggling to get the medication and support he needed.

They eventually found Greendale House through its Kensington Charity Shop. In the interview that follows, they talk about how the illness has affected their family and finding hospice care:

Melissa: My dad doesn’t like to be away from home. He likes his bed. And the moment he’s away, everything feels empty. You can just feel the house is quiet. When I was at school or working, I struggled to get up at in the morning. So my dad would always wake me up and he would say, “Would you like a cup of coffee?” In my spare time I also work with stray animals, and my dad used to help me buy food for them. Sometimes, when my dad got paid, he would give me money and say, “Go and do something for the animals. I know you love them.”

I think his hobbies are the best hobbies I know. His rugby, his Fast and the Furious. And reading the Bible. That’s something that he has always done. If you go to sleep at night, you’ll see him sitting in the kitchen, reading his Bible.

We’ve always tried to do things together as a family, but then the cancer came.

Illness

Claude: Before I got sick I worked at the butcher. I was a supervisor and later a manager there.

Melissa: We obviously had struggles before then, but before we found out he had cancer, he had problems passing urine. He would have pain and get sent home from work.

Claude: I didn’t pay much attention to what was happening at first, I just continued working. But I constantly had problems with my bladder and I was in a lot of pain. The pain was constant. I went to the doctor and they did a sonar. That’s when they discovered I had a tumour. They admitted me and carried out the necessary procedures. After the second biopsy they informed me that I had cancer and that it was spreading.

It was hard to accept.

The diagnosis changes everything

Claude: What was going through my mind when I heard I had cancer? I’m not going to lie to you. It was suicide. Because I was healthy before and now I sit with cancer. And I’m not able to provide for my family.

Elizabeth: When he came home he started crying. Melissa was at school then. He said to me, “I have cancer.” I told him, “You’re not going to do the same thing my father done and my grandfather done. We’ll face it together.”

Melissa: I was in high school when I found out my dad had cancer. At the time we were busy with exams. After Matric I was supposed to go and study, but because of my dad getting sick, I decided not to. I went straight into work.

I’m very close to my dad. Whenever I had boyfriend problems, or I was crying, or I had issues, he was always the first to know. If I was quiet, he was the first to notice.

Now it’s not the same having those conversations, because his cancer means sometimes he forgets. Sometimes he doesn’t know what he’s doing. Sometimes his confusion means he can be a bit aggressive with the dogs. He doesn’t mean to. My dad before cancer would never have been like that.

My mom and my dad argue sometimes because nobody understands the pain he’s in. He tries to explain the pain, but nobody really knows what he’s experiencing.

Family in crisis

Elizabeth: He’s been to the hospital now 14 times. And they kept sending him back. They’re telling him they don’t have ICU beds because of this and this and this and that. The most difficult part was him not being able to get things like medications. Like, nothing for pain, nothing for nauseousness. To the point where he would just stand and he’d just start vomiting.

Melissa: He couldn’t use the toilet for number two, he would go a week without being able to use the toilet. And urinating blood clots as big as your thumb… that can’t be easy for anybody.

Finding Greendale House

Melissa: The day my mom found hospice, she went to the Greendale House Charity Shop in Kensington. We call it the Five Rand Store. She found information on hospice through a lady that volunteers there, and she told my mom we can get assistance, and told us where to find them.

My mother walked to the hospice to get information. But when she arrived there my mother was too scared to talk. She was scared that they were going to take my dad away from her, that they would admit him to hospice and she wouldn’t be able to see him again after that.

She left and came back home. I told her, “Walk me there, show me where it is.”

So I went to Greendale House myself and I had a conversation with one of the staff team, Tshepo, and we spoke for a while. He asked me things like what stage is my dad in, what size my dad was. When I left he gave me nappies to take to my dad.

The next day I met with their Intake Officer, Christo. I didn’t understand a few things that were going on, and so Christo sat with me, spoke to me, explained to me.

And that same night, Greendale House delivered medication for my dad because my dad was nauseous. I didn’t expect it.

A few days later one of the home-care nurses, Sr Linky, came to come see my dad. She gave him something to put up his bum for the toilets and after that they ordered more medication for him. And she continues to come.

Through Greendale House we finally got the medication my dad needed. They also explained to us how he needs to take his medication, and why he needs to take it, which he wasn’t understanding.

The whole family is cared for

Melissa: I think what I like best about the hospice is the fact that they offer therapy to the whole family. So the wife, the kids, I think that’s very good.

I haven’t gotten bugged about the money situation. You don’t have to repeat yourself to them saying, “No, we can’t afford that.” They understand, you know, immediately when you say, “I’m struggling.”