Hospice | Help to Keep Living During the Final Stage of Life

Hospice | Help to Keep Living During the Final Stage of Life

This conversation is brought to you by Optum Palliative Care. All opinions are my own.

My Dad and I were having a conversation just the other day about hospice and what a blessing it was for our family when my grandmother was sick.

Death is a stage of life that every single one of us has to deal with and eventually go through ourselves.

Screen Shot 2015-01-16 at 4.06.34 PMIt doesn’t have to be experienced in a stark white sterile environment with strangers.

Hospice has been in existence for more than 40 years, yet, professionals in the field still see a need for basic information about hospice, advance care planning, care giving, and grief to be shared.

That’s why, locally Optum Palliative Care is supporting the non-profit 501 (c) 3 National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization’s, “Moments of Life” campaign.  “Moments of Life” educates the public about the choices we all have when facing a life-limiting illness, and how choosing hospice is not ‘giving up.’

Thanks to hospice my grandmother was able to go back to my Dad’s house and continue her life as close to normal as possible. Her nurse arrived on schedule and would chat with us about how she was feeling, assess her and even call in prescriptions for us to go fill. If we had a concern or pressing question, they were only a phone call away.

Thanks to hospice Nanny was able to wake to my father’s cherry sing songy voice, attend family events like weddings and reunions, spend time cuddling on the couch watching television like we did when I was younger, go get her hair done, and even go shopping all with the help of oxygen tanks.

The nurses with hospice were incredible. They were kind, patient, caring, compassionate women whose visits not only helped reduce my grandmother’s stress levels, but ours as a caregiver as well.

This stage of life while on hospice is no longer about trying to fix what is wrong, but helping the patient be comfortable and spend their final months, weeks, days or hours home with their family.

Hospice is not “giving up“.

My grandmother passed peacefully in her sleep during a nap… in her own bed. She had joy, peace, dignity and most of all love.

This short video shares compelling stories from patients, families and caregivers and presents how much more ‘living’ hospice enables in the last chapter of life.

For more information about hospice please visit www.momentsoflife.org.


Comments

  1. Sarah L says

    I’ve had friends who used hospice and they were all very happy with it.

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