The Police Chief and Diane
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| Diane--April 2015 (Photo by John Carroll) |
The call on the phone several weeks ago was from a local central Illinois police chief who wanted to know if I needed some fentanyl patches for Haitian Hearts. He said that a local nursing home disposes of some of their drugs with him and they leave it up to him to destroy the medication or use it in a humanitarian fashion. He told me that he “hated wasting expensive medication”.
Fentanyl is a very strong narcotic used for patients with severe pain. I couldn’t believe the good timing of his call. I knew I had the perfect candidate in Haiti for the nursing home’s narcotics. So the chief and I met and I signed a form stating that he had delivered the donated medication to Haitian Hearts.
I first examined Diane (not her real name) two months ago and posted about her here. I have kept in touch with the Sisters who give Diane care in their clinic and they have told me that she is going down hill quickly. She is unable to walk the mile to the clinic any longer.
Diane is 51 years old and has horrible cancer of the vulva, vagina, and cervix. And the nuns have no more of the original fentanyl that I took Diane in February. She is taking some oral pain meds which are quite weak and don’t really touch her pain.
This morning I went with one of the Sisters to Diane’s one room shack. A neighbor man led us to her doorway. Sister gently called her name and Diane was able to answer the door but was crying out in agony. Even though she has six grown children, she was all alone with her misery.
Diane’s eyes were staring and wild as she pulled up her dress to show us what the cancer was doing to her. Diane flung herself on the bed and started grabbing and hitting the sides of her inner thighs which abutted the cancer that had destroyed her entire genitalia making it look like raw hamburger. She looked at us and screamed that the cancer is “eating me”.
We calmed Diane as much as we could and put two fentanyl patches on her right shoulder area. Since she has had fentanyl in the past she knows that it will work and we showed her the big yellow sack full of all different fentanyl strengths. Diane calmed down when she saw the medication in front of her and the potential for relief.
One of Diane’s daughters showed up and stood in the middle of the room and watched. I can’t imagine the sorrow this young woman must have as she watches her mother dwindle away in such a brutal fashion.
So we are very grateful to the Peoria area police chief. He reached out to someone he did not know and never will. He supplied Diane with months and months of pain relief as she passes from one world into another.
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| Diane (Photo by John Carroll) |
What a slow and painful way to die. I’m so happy Diane got the meds. There are so many Dianes in Haiti. I was just there couple weeks ago and I’m still trying to emotionally cope with the misery I saw. Thanks to you John and the chief. Diane may die with a bit more dignity.