Is it inappropriate if I (F21) visit a terminally ill man (M50s) who only lived at my place of work for a few months?

Hey all, sorry for the jumble of a title. Let me explain better:

I work at a senior’s home as an activity aide while I put myself through school. My biggest and favourite programs are bingo, manicures, and hand massages. This home in particular has an “assisted living” side where residents live with minimal assistance, and mostly remain independent. We also have a memory care area for those who have dementia and need more care and safety than others, but this isn’t really relevant.

Sometimes, however, we get the odd younger person in their 50s/60s with early onset dementia, so it’s not uncommon. But this guy, who we’ll call W, doesn’t have any dementia at all. He has an aggressive brain cancer with maybe ~6 months to live, so he moved in to live out the rest of his days with a little more care. Because of his cancer, he has seizures frequently that have completely wiped out any sensation in his left hand, and he just needs a little help getting by.

A few months ago when he first moved in, I offered him a hand massage. Unknowingly, this helped him regain sensation and feeling in his hand to the point where he could touch his fingers together and actually feel things on his skin again. He was blown away, and from then on we set up a time where we’d meet once a week for a hand massage. For the last few months we’ve made great progress and he’s been so happy and thankful.

This naturally doesn’t have a happy ending though. On Monday, W had a bad seizure during an MRI, due to his tumor expanding too rapidly in his brain. He came back from the hospital all swollen and droopy and no sensation whatsoever in his left arm either now. I gave him a massage anyways (and brought him some halloween candy) and he, like always, said it’s so helpful and proved my showing how much movement he gained back after the massage. I told him I’d research some more techniques for sensation loss and see him on Sunday.

Yesterday, he was told a bed opened up for him in a palliative care home (for those who don’t know, palliative care is pretty much end of life care, where you’re made as comfortable as possible for the end of your life). I got a call from my work telling me about all this, and I’m devastated. I know he’s going to die, but I didn’t think this quickly. Hearing from coworkers, they tell me he’s extremely upset too and is more worried due to the fact he can’t even afford the bed for more than a few months. I feel awful about all this.

I don’t want to quit our progress on his hand, and I really don’t want to cut off talking to him at all. W is an extremely kind person with a super positive attitude, and I enjoy chatting with him when we meet up. And I’ve heard from multiple coworkers how thrilled he is to have these massages and how grateful he is, and I just don’t want that to stop for him. So I supposed my question is, is it weird to reach out to him wherever he ends up and visit him? In my 2+ years of working here, I’ve never really followed up with any resident after they’ve moved out besides the general “hey does anyone know how ____ is doing”. I do feel bad for W, and want to just help him however I can. How would I even approach this if I were to? I don’t work again until Sunday, and he might be gone by then too. However we will still have his personal cell and email for a while after, so is an email okay? Not to mention, he doesn’t have any family that I know of here. Besides a few friends and a daughter in Australia (we’re in Canada), he’s pretty on his own as far as I know. I just feel upset about this all and reminded how hard it can be to work with people.

Thanks for reading this far everyone.

TLDR: man with terminal brain cancer moving out from the seniors home I work at, we often meet so I can give him a hand massage to help his paralyzed hand and brighten his day, want to know if it’s inappropriate to continue to visit him.

Edit: just wanted to thank everyone who replied a MILLION times over. You’re all so kind and helpful and really trying to look out for my well-being during this and that means a lot. All the best to everyone. :-)

Submitted November 01, 2019 at 10:35AM by hothoneybuns https://ift.tt/2oDigFJ