Hospice is more than escorting people at their life's end. Hospice offers a wide variety of services that can support you and your family before and after someone's death. First of all hospice service is covered by Medicare/MediCAL. Hospice provides care and support with social workers, nurses, home health aids, counselors, volunteers, and clergy. The main goal of the hospice work at home or in a facility is to make the patient comfortable, set up a pain management schedule and support friends and family members.
Hospice also offers a transition program for individuals with life-threatening illnesses and a prognosis of about one year of life. It covers emotional and practical support. Besides other services, these clients have a caseworker to assess his or her changing needs and make the necessary referrals to different community resources.
The End of Life Coalition is also a part of the wide hospice program. A few months ago this program received a grant, which it used to send some people for training to learn to teach others about expectations, common situations and how to handle them, and skills to help those who are dying. I attended this first class, and it more than exceeded my expectations. I have worked my whole life in the health field, and I have seen many people dying, but this class has given me a new perspective of life . . . and death. These classes offer much helpful information, and very often the most useful knowledge comes in the form of small hints that can mean so much to someone expecting his or her own death or the death of a loved one.
One of my class mates, Cherokee, lost her friend on a day during our five-week course. She told us, "This class is about love. It takes away the fear of the future and the fear of death. We are living and dying at the same time — if you will, life is a terminal illness." The next class, called Care Giving at Life's End, will start in April or May. For more information, see the phone numbers at the end of this article.
The End of Life Coalition is providing for the second time a stage reading to the Community about life, aging and dying. It called VESTA.
What is VESTA? VESTA (goddess of the hearth, identified with the Greek goddess Hestia) is a stage reading about life and death. There will be one performance April 18, 2004, starting at 1 pm at the First Congregational Church, 900 High Street in Santa Cruz and tickets are still available.
VESTA is about an elderly Lady going through the aging process. It portrays her relationship with her family, with her friends, her sometimes irrational behavior and how her surrounding responds to it. It is in down to earth language with often-humorous situations. After the performance the public has the one time opportunity to sit together with trained counselors and Community professionals and talk about the play but also their own situations, the fears und the expectations. There are special groups talking about: Living Will, Senior Care Options, and Grief and Loss. Everyone can make the decision whether they want to stay for the discussion or come only for the stage reading.
When we become aware that we, or a family member/friend, come close to the end of life we all deal with different kind of emotions: Denial, fear, impatience, and the greatest dread is for the unknown. We all have to go through and each one of us is dealing with it in very different ways.
Some people live in apprehensive life situations and consciously refuse to involve anyone in the own affairs. Searching for a last will, searching for life insurance, going trough all the collection of checkbooks and statements, figuring out where and with which bank the mom/dad did her/his business after a loved one passed on leads very often to conflicts in families and the split may go through the rest of their life. What a lot of people try to protect during a lifetime is suddenly exposed to every one. Where is the protection now? Wouldn’t it be better that at least one person, if not a family member then a friend, lawyer, or a trustful someone, has all the copies and knows at least where and with whom to deal. All this will be talked about in the performance and afterwards in groups with interested people. Every one can stay as long as they wish.
At the beginning of March this year Christa Martin (not related to me) wrote an article for the Good Times about her personal experience losing first her mom and then shortly after her dad. How she dealt with grief and who could help her and which kind of help she couldn’t accept. She really wrote from her heart and I hope we will see her on April 18 at the VESTA performance.
I personally learned through my professional life, working in hospitals and especially in the last 10 years with seniors, to listen and sometimes listen between the lines. Very often I was the one addressed by a partner during a drive or by a client when I was alone at home with them. a sometimes- emotional conversation gave my clients a peace of mind they rarely had before. I encouraged my clients to talk to someone they think is the right person, or to sit down with me and to write down last wishes . . . or sometimes what is not wished at all. Have a peaceful springtime.
For the Caregiving at Life's End class, call Joana deBelkadi at 477-0728; the class is free of charge.
Serving Santa Cruz County: Hospice of Santa Cruz County; phone 688-7684.
Serving Monterey, San Benito, and Santa Cruz Counties: Heartland Hospice: phone 373-8442.
Serving Monterey and San Benito Counties: VNA Hospice: phone 372-6688.
_______________
This article originally appeared in Ruth F. Martin's column “Seniors' Choices” in the Register-Pajaronian newspaper. [March 2004]
To contact Ruth about consulting services, please call (831) 632-0603 or email her at info@healthandseniorcare.org.
©2004 Ruth F. Martin. All rights reserved.
