Conversation: Care for dying gave sister a ‘vocation within a vocation’

Sydney
20 January 2002

Parish appeal raises $100,000

‘Safe house’ seen as jail for kids

School’s out after 37 years

Praise for Anglican leader

Churchill Fellowship to Weekly columnist

Family backing ‘essential’ to deacons

Volunteers share ‘in the mission of Jesus Christ’

A culture without meaning or truth? Hardly a heart’s desire

Editorial: Ecology and the Church

Letters: On the Rite (1)

Conversation: Care for dying gave sister a ‘vocation within a vocation’ -- Sr Nano Lyons, a caring achiever

Reflections: Need for counter-images of peace

Comment: The fight to keep school fees down

Feature: Now for something completely different

Scalabrini’s message on migrants ‘relevant’ now

Obituary: A lover of books who loved giving

Inspirations: Priest named church after Gaelic saint

Conversation: Care for dying gave sister a ‘vocation within a vocation’ - Sr Nano Lyons, a caring achiever

‘Glory! Did I do all this? Is this really me?’ That was the reaction of Sr Nano Lyons when she was told she was being nominated for an award. But it was her and she had done “all this” – first as a mothercraft nurse and later, in her ‘vocation within a vocation’, as a nurse specialising in palliative care. She talks to MARILYN KERJEAN

Sr Nano Lyons cares. She cares about the little, aesthetic details of daily life. It’s much cooler inside the villa where she lives in the Sisters of St Joseph community complex in Croydon.

Fragrant musk pink roses peek over a vase on the table where Sr Nano (pictured) reads the newspaper. The subtle scent of essential oils contrasts markedly with the bushfire smoke-laden air outside. She offers tea in pretty china cups and some homemade banana cake.

But Sr Nano cares most about big picture things; especially the quality of life of the elderly sisters in the community – with a small team of fellow Josephites she helps them remain physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually well.

Her lifetime of dedication to caring for others has been recognised. At the age of 75, Sr Nano recently won the Premier’s Seniors Achievement Award.

It honoured her work as a palliative nurse from the early 1980s, when she began caring for the terminally ill in Sydney’s inner west.

“When my superiors rang up and told me they were nominating me I laughed,” she says.

But they were serious and asked another sister to sit in on her interview – knowing that Sr Nano wouldn’t list all her achievements.

She was amazed when she read the final application. “You look at the things that you’ve done and you think: ‘Glory! Did I do all this? Is this really me?’ The same thing will happen to you when you’re my age,” she says. “You don’t realise all the things you’ve done.”

Sr Nano says that nursing must run in her genes; her mother and sister chose the same profession.

At 18 she toyed with the idea of religious life but her mother dissuaded her, saying she was too young.

She was fond of babies so she went to Broadmeadows in Melbourne to train as a mothercraft nurse, caring for babies and toddlers.

She worked alongside religious nurses in the hospital. And getting to know them as colleagues and friends, not just teachers at school, confirmed her desire for the religious life.

“I was very impressed by the nuns there; they worked very hard but they were a happy crowd,” she remembers.

“I never heard one nun criticise another or anything and I thought there’s something in this life that makes these women who are working so hard – without a day off – so happy.”

She joined the Josephites just before her 21st birthday and continued to work as a nurse in infant care.

When she came to Sydney she began working as a volunteer with Theresa Plane, a nurse with a palliative care outreach in Seven Hills.

For the first time she worked with the dying in their homes and found it more fulfilling, a vocation within a vocation.

“I found that the most rewarding branch of nursing,” she says.

“You’re keeping people free of pain and helping them to be at home with their families, which is much more comfortable for them and for their families, particularly if there are children around.

“The hospital can be very sterile – because you visit and talk for a while and what do you do after that? – although sometimes it comes to a point where people have to go there.”

Sr Nano undertook oncology and palliative care training. Then she worked with a team of community nurses in the western suburbs.

Her main job? Assisting in pain control for the dying at home.

It was the early 80s. “There was no palliative care out in the west then. They only had it at Kogarah (hospital) so it was pioneering,” she says.

“When I would first go a patient that’s one of the things I would say to them: ‘I can assure you you will not have pain,’ because that’s what’s they’re most frightened of.”

Sr Nano is very firm on the issue of euthanasia.

“Of all the patients that I have nursed, and I’ve nursed many who were dying, no one has ever asked me can I possibly shorten their life,” she says. “None of their relatives has ever said that either.

“If I can keep them comfortable and the family see them comfortable, they don’t want them to die.

“So, when they talk about euthanasia, saying it’s terrible to see them suffering, if there’s good patient care there is no suffering. They may be weak and all, but even so you can help that, too.

“And none of us has got a right to do it (perform euthanasia), have we?”

Sr Nano says she would always stress to her patients that she was there as a nurse first, but they knew she was always available for conversation about spiritual matters.

“When you come to dying, what is there but yourself and the Lord,” she says, “so eventually they would usually come round to talking about religion and God.

“I had one man and his wife went to get a cup of tea and he commenced crying. I said: ‘Why are you crying? Are you frightened?’. He said: ‘Yes, I’m frightened of what’s going to happen after’.

“I said: ‘Look, I can’t tell you not to be frightened. I don’t know what comes after. I only know that if you trust in God everything will be all right’.”

She left him a picture of Jesus that he put at his bedside. But a couple days later he complained: “I remembered what you said. But Sr Nano, I’ve never met the gentleman; I couldn’t talk to him.”

Sr Nano told him he was, in fact, talking to God just by trying.

“He died two days later and I thought: Well, he’s met ‘the gentleman’ now,” she smiles.

Only one case has really saddened her, when she witnessed the spiritual agony of a dying man.

“I always find that people come to peace at the end, but he’s the only one that I knew who didn’t have peace until, I think just a few hours before,” she says.

Sr Nano has never felt the burden of stress from dealing every day with the dying and their families. She blew off any tension over a cup of tea with her fellow community nurses.

“You can discuss with other nurses and laugh about things with them that you wouldn’t with other people,” she says.

Sr Nano retired a couple of years ago, but she still assists aged and sick sisters and the dying when necessary.

She works now mostly to motivate the older sisters to keep learning new skills and experiencing new things while also maintaining their social networks.

A firm believer of the ‘use it or lose it’ approach to old age, she has begun a computer school with other sisters for the elderly in the community. The eldest student, 87, designed her Christmas cards on the computer last year.

Line dancing lessons, singing and dancing and massage days and outings all help keep them active physically and mentally.

“I tell them I’m doing it all for this,” she says, tapping her forehead. And she says she can see the fruits. “People used to retire and just sit at home and read the paper, but now there are so many options for them.”

Sr Nano is kind and wise and also probably very shrewd when it comes to reading people, as might be expected of one with a lifetime’s experience of being close to people of all kinds.

When her own time is up, Sr Nano has asked a fellow sister to give the eulogy and told her she has to say: “She was a rebel and we’re glad to be rid of her!”.