This weekend, I’m flying out to Houston to visit my
ninety-seven year old grandmother.
Granted, it is not a great time to fly right now with all the crazy
things going on in the news… but this trip was planned a while back and it may be
the last time I get to spend time with my grandma. She now has end stage dementia and I feel it may be time to
introduce the idea of hospice to the extended family. I am approaching this topic with some hesitation because I
realize there may be a lot of misconceptions and fear associated with hospice.
So the basic 101 about hospice that I hope to convey
include:
- - most patients could probably benefit from being
put on hospice a lot sooner than the family realizes
- - just because a patient is on hospice, doesn’t
necessarily mean that death is days or even weeks away
o in
fact, some perk up and improve so much from the extra attention, they may even
get disqualified from continued service
-
- goal is comfort for the patient and support for
the family
o to
make the patient as comfortable as possible with as much dignity as possible…
so that the days can be spent hassle-free without a lot of extraordinary
measures and invasive procedures
o to
give family and caregivers support, encouragement, and a resource from
professionals with tremendous experience with end of life issues
It will be challenging to convey all this with a language
and cultural barrier, but we’ll see how it goes.
In the meanwhile, I hope to spend some quality time just
being with my grandmother. Simple
things like the sound of ones voice or the feel of ones hand…
can go a long way in communicating love and offering comfort. I also hope to give some relief and
provide emotional and physical support to my aging aunt who is the primary
caregiver… and the same to my other aunt who carries a lot of the logistical
and physical responsibilities associated with the care.
Leaving my four children behind on this short weekend trip
is not easy. I am forced to rely
on other caregivers to manage the day to day logistics and needs of my
kids. At the same time, I look forward to sleeping in! I admit I am a
“control-freak” and often feel the need to call or text multiple times a day
just to find out what is going on and whether things are smooth. It so happens that my phone
developed an issue and I cannot currently make calls or receive calls and texts
on the cellular network. I am
sitting here on the plane typing this hoping to fix the problem the minute I
land. I realize that at the end of
the day, even if things are not going as smooth as I like back home… what can I
do? Maybe not having contact for a
while can be a good lesson for me to let go and let be. Oh… let’s see if I can do that.
So back to my earlier comment about it being a crazy time to
fly… at least on this flight from Philly… no one seems to be acutely ill or
overly worried about contracting anything =)
