Terms of Endearment: St. Vincent’s Hospital, palliative care wing, March 18, 2026 Because Anne’s brain tumour has caused ongoing incontinence that impacts both her comfort and dignity, a catheter insertion became a necessary step in managing her care. Understanding how frightened she was of the procedure – her trembling, whimpers, and tears revealing the depth..
Our Last Birthday Together: St. Vincent’s Hospital Palliative Care Unit, March 10, 2026 The nurses brought in the birthday breakfast with quiet hands, the early light of dawn trembling, uncertain, like the hush in Anne’s voice. Anne smiled, the skin around her lips softening as if time could not bear to bruise her further…
Heather: A Gentle Benediction Elegiac Free Verse for Our Palliative Care Volunteer Heather – named for the white bloom* that threads protection through wild hills, good fortune’s quiet blossom, a wish released into the hush of a winter morning. She arrives at our abode gentle as petals, breathing colour into Anne’s world, her soothing laughter..
A PSW (Personal Support Worker) of our very own Until very recently, I was quite unsure as to how and for how long I could look after Anne here in our home. Anne is afflicted with stage 4 glioblastoma, a particularly aggressive form of brain cancer. Until Latifa, our assigned PSW, arrived at the door…
Anne has entered the end of life phase of her journey and is henceforth receiving palliative care A journey that began on May 8 of this year with a diagnosis of glioblastoma, a particularly aggressive form of brain cancer, is entering a final phase. My darling wife Anne will no longer be tethered..
Out of the Cognitive Jungle: A Poem of Laughter and Love Between tangled thoughts and shadowed mind’s domain, I wander, lost amid the wild unknown— Yet laughter, bright and sudden as the rain, Breaks through the brambles I have called my own. A chorus rises—family, all around, Their arms unwavering, their presence clear. In..