Today I’ll be taking you on a journey into the mystical corridors of the hospice ward, where the mundane meets the otherworldly, and the veil between the living and the dead is thinner than a heartbeat.
We’ve all heard stories about ghosts roaming hospital halls, occasionally emerging to scare some mortals. In Taiwanese culture, we grow up hearing about people who are more “sensitive” to the otherworldly and are more likely to see the dead.
Yes, we’ve all heard of those stories, but no one imagines it will happen to them.
At least I didn’t.
It was a Thursday afternoon and my first week of clinical rotations in Family Medicine. Here, the two main learning objectives are elderly and hospice care.
On this very fine day, we were having an open discussion about signs of death approaching and postmortem care, which are really interesting topics that you don’t hear much of outside the hospice ward.
Postmortem care is the professional way a healthcare worker approaches a patient who has just passed and the appropriate way to lead departed souls toward realms unknown, wherever they may be heading. It is a very sacred ritual and must be handled very carefully.
That was when it happened.
Halfway through our discussion of postmortm care, a wave of nausea engulfed me. It was unlike anything I had ever experienced, like a metaphysical punch to the head, accompanied by an unmistakable sense of direction.
Along with it came a loud bang echoing in my head.
The room, once filled with the mundane hum of medical discourse, now crackled with an energy I couldn’t identify. I glanced around at my group mates, searching for signs that they had felt the same wave that had crashed into me like a tsunami.
Nothing.
As I sat there, grappling with the invisible force that had taken hold of my senses, I realized I was at the crossroads of the living and the beyond. Postmortem suddenly felt like more than just a class discussion.
Was it actually something beyond the living?
If it was- was it an accident or intentional?
That’s up for you to interpret, fellow wanderers.
Welcome to the hospice ward, where the secrets whispered between the living and the dead remain shrouded in mystery. A place where the mundane meets the mystical, and the dance between the seen and the unseen unfolds in the hallowed corridors of the hospital.
Until Next Time,
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