“I just wonder how individuals deal with getting discharged from Hospice because the patient didn’t decline quickly enough for Medicare?” is a question I received recently– and it’s not the first one of its kind I’ve received. Why is the patient being discharged, you ask? Is it because the patient just didn’t decline as rapidly […]
Dear Barbara, I am a hospice nurse struggling with going back to work while still deep in grief after losing my mom. How/when did you go back to work? I’m doing all the things I’d advise my patients’ family members to do when grieving. Just broken and lost. Any and all advice is welcome. When […]
Dear Barbara, I cared for my Mama in my home up until she passed. Hospice care was only for a week. I received their package of paperwork, along with one of your books, “Gone From My Sight.” I was told by the head/charge nurse not to read the book right away, but rather wait a […]
As most of you know my husband died September 18. It was my turn to walk on the other side of hospice. He was diagnosed in May with cancer of the lung. At 89, we decided treatment would hinder his quality of living. At 89, any disruption of our “normal” can turn into a downward […]
I often do some of my best thinking during those hours at night when I am awake. Recently, as I tried to go back to sleep at 3:30 AM, I started thinking about comfort care and morphine use during the end of life process. Picture this: there is breathing distress while the hospice nurse is present. She […]
When it comes to looking at how long someone diagnosed with a life-threatening illness has to live, we tend to give people more time than they actually have.Doctors do it, family does it. It is the hospice nurse or end of life doula’s job to be the realist, to guide all present. Families give more […]
I talk a lot about eating and not eating as a person approaches the end of their life. I remind people that our body eats to live and that when the body is preparing to die, all by itself, it cuts back and stops eating. The person reaches a place where they just can’t eat […]
Dear Barbara, my mother has progressive cancer. She has refused hospice because she wants to go to the emergency room if she needs to. We’ve had hospice for two other family members and they were wonderful. I am so disappointed she won’t accept their help. I need their help. She lives alone. I live several […]
When dying a gradual death, there are a variety of dynamics and patterns, as well as the individual’s personality that makes each death unique. Yet as unique as each death is, there are also commonalities. In the months before death from disease, and often years before death from old age, parts of our personality begin to […]
Pain at end of life is so misunderstood. It seems like the letters I receive from family members saying “Hospice gave my mom morphine and they killed her” are increasing instead of decreasing. SO here are my thoughts on how to help our families: education, education, education. Before beginning use of morphine or fentanyl sit […]
