Spare a thought and a prayer for our hospices in the midst of the coronavirus epidemic. In my own, a third of staff are working from home or isolating for fear that we will pass on the disease to our patients, many of whom are not imminently dying but will do if they are infected. Our army of volunteers on whom we rely have also been told to stay home as most of them are vulnerable themselves. We are not prioritised for personal protective equipment so must wait our turn behind the NHS hospitals and GP practices, leaving staff at risk when we do get a case.

This is not to complain: the whole country is under strain and on the whole working together to weather the storm. We continue to accept as many new admissions as possible, both for the sake of the patients and to ease the pressure on our local hospitals. And we continue to find solace and inspiration in the people we look after.

Dave (not his real name) arrived at the hospice paralysed by a cancer that had metastasised to his spine. Only lying flat on his back, avoiding even the slightest movements, and dosed up heavily on opiates, was he able to prevent excruciating shooting pain in his lower back and legs.

Dave is a young man with an inherently optimistic character, who had faced and overcome terrible challenges in the past, but even he admitted that this latest reality was utter misery. The cancer is inoperable and resistant to chemotherapy and radiotherapy. It will claim his life in the coming months, if not sooner.

We approached him in the same way that we do all our patients: to give him the best quality of life achievable, through control of his symptoms and holistic care, aiming to meet his physical, psychological, social and spiritual needs. Part of this is to work together towards any realistic goals that Dave sets. After only the briefest periods of low mood, which made me ashamed of my own tendency to despair at even insignificant setbacks in my own life, Dave set himself a goal: to be able to sit up. We were not hopeful, but supported him with a combination of increasingly powerful (and thereby risky) cocktails of analgesia, persistent physiotherapy and encouragement.

He turned his will towards this end with the support of his family and together they celebrated every grain of progress, from being able to raise his back up an inch, to being able to roll on his side for washing without screaming out. All the while we were conscious of the uphill struggle he faced against an ever-growing cancer. From day to day no discernible change could be noticed, but over the course of weeks something remarkable was taking place.

He went from near complete paralysis to being able to tolerate the back of the bed tilted at fifteen degrees, then thirty, then forty-five. He started being able to roll onto his side with his pain under control. Soon, Dave was encouraging us, as well as we him.

Last week I came to him on the morning ward round and he beamed at me with a marvellous smile. He showed me a picture on his iPad that was harder to believe was real than a photo of the Loch Ness Monster. The night before, Dave had sat out on the edge of his bed for four minutes. He insisted on a selfie as proof of this historic feat. His face in the picture and in the flesh expressed a joy that you will not even see on an Olympic medallist on the podium.

That joy infected the whole hospice, and all day staff were popping in for another dose of that amazing image, which he shared with unending delight.

If I told you that I sat up on the edge of my bed today then sang for joy at this simple act you would think me mad. But Dave, having been denied that basic motion which we all take for granted, now relishes it every time he achieves it.

There is a beautiful chapel in the hospice in which the Blessed Sacrament is reserved, which I am sorry to say I rarely visited until this epidemic and the subsequent measures we have faced as Catholics. Now I am conscious of the fact that I am amongst the very few laity in the country who can pray before the tabernacle. I have started praying there before work and am struck by what a privilege it is to kneel before our Lord and make a spiritual communion, and to intercede for my family, friends and patients.

The loss we all feel at not having Mass or even access to our shrines, though temporary, is still a source of great pain.

But through that loss, a deep joy can be found in our renewed devotion to the sacraments, and a renewed gratitude for our shrines and clergy, which we have all been taking for granted for too long. When the physical menace is over and the doors to our churches open and the Eucharist is offered to the faithful once more, I hope that we will all delight in its glory as much as Dave delights in sitting on the edge of his bed.

I hope, also, that the loss we are going through will encourage our shepherds – who have out of love and compassion for our bodily health denied us the Eucharist – to have the same love and compassion for our spiritual health. I hope we will be encouraged to continue denying ourselves the Eucharist, until we are in the proper state of grace which follows Confession. Then we can receive that most wonderful gift: the summit of joy, born from the greatest of all temporary losses, the loss of Christ on the Cross.

Anton Gilbert is a pseudonym

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