Tough choices and easing transitions with hospice
The end of life journey comes with tough choices. Hospice of North Idaho helps answer tough questions by discussing options.
Peggy Hodge, LPN, CHPLN palliative care nurse offers patients an empowering experience to explore their end of life options even if seeking curative treatment. She educates patients about disease progression, how their needs will change and increase. Her services can help ease the transition into traditional hospice care and rally families to an amicable ending. Services are completely supported by philanthropic care, not billed to the patient.
Knocking on her patient’s front door, Peggy knocks and calls out, “Hello!”
From inside the apartment returns a friendly welcoming, “Come on in!” by Richard, a Coeur d’Alene man in his sixties and enrolled in pre-hospice, palliative care.
The two sat comfortably in his studio-style living room and continued an open yet difficult conversation about his increasing needs for nursing care. Not uncommon, but not always the case, Richard is fairly secure with his end of life journey but still experiences fear, hesitations, and stress. The goal of pre-hospice palliative care is to empower patients, open the conversation and begin talking about personal choices along a road that leads to one end.
Peggy asked about Richard’s progress on finding a new living situation that would keep up with his increasing need for care. Richard returned with honesty, saying that he is afraid of staying in his current, independent-apartment. He fears he may die alone and recognizes that he does not have 24-hour support for bathing and cooking.
In a wheelchair, and with both increasing pain and physical limitations, Richard is wishing for solutions. “The doctor tells me that I am dying, that there is nothing more they can do, but they don’t know how long I have,” he asks. “What hope is there?”
Richard finds himself in the search of something that many palliative and hospice patients go through. These questions are valid, yet no one has the answers. Peggy, in her seventh year with Hospice of North Idaho, believes hope comes by making decisions one-by-one, choosing how you want to live each day.
Appreciating his candor, she reorients Richard toward available choices. She asks about the progress he made in finding housing, how many facilities he called, if he had a good feeling about any of them, and if he visited any this week.
Richard knows he wants a place with gentle, caring staff and good treatment. He doesn’t want to make a snap decision; but knows he needs to move soon. The process is admittedly stressful for Richard, and a work in progress. Yet, knowing that choice is in his control finally offered, “I think I have one in mind.”
He talked about how in the long-term, when he transitions to hospice care that he would like to be at the Schneidmiller House, where his friend had passed away. He appreciated the peaceful environment, the staff, and the respect his friend was shown saying, “I want to go out with dignity.”
As an advocate for patient wishes, Hospice of North Idaho encourages personal fulfillment and quality of life. Pursuing quality of life can start with talking through your wishes. Like Richard, his quality depends on being safe, and well cared for, and maintaining dignity. Peggy will continue to see Richard through this transition, walking alongside the entirety of the journey with him.