Wives give thanks by cooking for palliative care patients
Mona Campbell and Linda Smith met because their husbands are dying of cancer in the same palliative care facility. Larry Campbell and Ken Smith are actually “neighbours” in adjoining rooms at CapitalCare Norwood.
Ken, 65, had been there four months, before Larry, 68, arrived three weeks ago. The women are basically living with them as they live out their final days, sleeping on cots in their husbands’ private rooms.
The shared experience has fast-forwarded a close friendship between the women that normally would take months or years to develop, but there is nothing normal about their lives right now.
They briefly changed that Monday by cooking Thanksgiving dinner together at Norwood for about 100 people — their own families, as well as other patients and their families, and staff.
They decided it was the perfect place and the perfect way to give thanks not only for the fact that both husbands are still alive, but for the staff that care for them.
“We figured for some it would be their last Thanksgiving,” says Smith, who turns 50 this month.
“And there are a lot of families that spend their whole day here (with their loved ones) so we invited them all to join us.”
“This is such a fantastic place; everybody is like family here,” Smith says.
The women, wearing beige bibbed aprons, sit at one of the dining tables covered with festive orange tablecloths, steps away from a small kitchen where they’re preparing the meal.
The mouth-watering smell of four roasting turkeys — three of them in portable electric roasters — fills the air.
Large containers of peeled whole potatoes, carrots, and mini-football-sized cabbage rolls sit nearby waiting to be cooked.
If you’re going to make something, you might as well make it big, is cabbage-roll maker Campbell’s philosophy. As the third oldest in a family of 11 kids, she has been cooking large meals for large numbers of people as long as she can remember, she says.
“If she wasn’t so calm, cool and collected, I’d be sweatin’,” says Smith, laughing beside her.
“I told Mona (it wasn’t the best circumstances) that we had to meet this way, but everything has a reason,” she adds.
Campbell’s husband Larry is no longer able to eat solid foods and his condition has deteriorated to a point where he now sleeps most of the day, so he won’t be able to sample any of the meal. Smith’s husband Ken, will be able to eat only a few bites.
“I’m just thankful he’s still here ... because he shouldn’t be, although there are days I want to choke him,” Smith jokes. “But that’s just love.” Caught without a tissue, Campbell runs her fingers under her eyes, wiping away tears that come and go as she talks about the man she married 46 years ago, and as she listens to Smith talk about Ken.
The Smiths have been together 16 years.
Campbell says her husband thinks she overdoes things and would be worried about her cooking a big Thanksgiving dinner for everybody, so she decided not to tell him.
Truth is, “cooking is a saving grace for me. When I’m cooking, I don’t dwell on (what’s happening with Larry),” she explains.
It’s the same thing for Smith.
Claudette Boisvert, care manager of the palliative floor where Larry and Ken are patients, says what the two women are doing, “will always be a memory that these ladies will have for the rest of their lives, a bond from this time.
“We know when any of us are in crisis there is a time we need to come together for support, and this is one way that these ladies have done that with each other, but also for a lot of people,” Boisvert said.
“It brings that feeling of normalcy, that Thanksgiving is a normal way to celebrate and give thanks,” even when someone you love is in palliative care.
Ron Madley and Bob Antle, patients in other areas and on other floors who planned to attend the dinner, said they were overwhelmed by the generosity of the women donating the food, preparing it and inviting everyone to join in.
“We’ve never had something like this happen here before,” Boisvert says, noting the facility accommodated the women’s plans for cooking Thanksgiving dinner, while ensuring all the food they cooked met strict preparation and serving requirements.
Norwood staff prepared Thanksgiving dinner for the rest of the patients who couldn’t eat a meal of solid food or have dietary restrictions.
“I’m glad you allowed us to do it. It means a lot,” Smith tells her.
“Our goal is to care for these patients and we know as health care providers that caring for patients is about caring for their families too, and if you can’t do both, I’m not sure we’ve done our work.”