Our patient was dying, earlier in the day his wife had asked how long he had left to live. I had told her I wasn’t sure, but it was likely he only had hours to short days left to live. It usually is hard to tell but in his case it was even harder as our team were surprised that he was still alive. We had expected him to die two days ago. He was a strong young man who didn’t want to die. He continued to hold on. I talked about no matter how much time was left that we would try our best to keep him calm, to keep him comfortable. We’re going to get you through this.

His daughter was just outside of the room. She was cutting out pictures from magazines and she was assembling a collage. There was a picture of a beach. Someone had a straw hat on and holding a fishing rod. There was some pictures of indoor furniture. I think there might’ve been a fluffy toy bunny in another picture. She had a glue stick in her other hand and she was rearranging the images on the blank sheet of paper in front of her. She had seen her father become more unwell over the past month, increasingly so in the past week.

It’s not standard practice for us to provide meals to family members but we do make exceptions at times. We arranged for meals for both of his children and their mother, catered for by our hospice kitchen. The children were given the choice of ordering either the fish and chips, or the chicken nuggets and chips. This was extra exciting for them, they would have their own tray of food, including dessert. What a treat. They could eat together with their mother who had her own tray. Father had been too unwell to swallow anything for the past week, and had slept most of the last three days.

A happy half hour that they shared together doing something normal. There had been too little of that in recent weeks. Long days and nights in hospital had been stressful. The children didn’t get much time with their parents together. The time was precious for them, and hopefully it allowed for a nicer memory to be formed.

Our patient died peacefully later on that same night. The room became crowded as many other family members came in to pay their respects.

The next day his wife asked us how much the bill was. When the interpreter told her that there was no charge, she burst into tears.