Caregivers of Older Adults Blog | Hospice/End of Life (2)

As you place your hand on the doorknob to enter a room do you ever stop to think about what you might encounter on the other side of that door? What will you find or experience as you step over the threshold? Anytime we are about to walk into a room what waits for us on the other side of the door may be an expected scene or perhaps something so surprising and unanticipated that it may change our life or the life of someone else! As caregivers, regardless of whether we are caring for someone in our home, a nursing home, hospital or hospice, we probably experience these moments of not knowing what to expect each and every time we walk through the door to extend care for our patient or loved one. Learning ways to cope with what often times is unexpected is an important aspect of caregiving.

The last time I saw Helen was at a planning meeting for our 25^th high school reunion.  While we weren’t the closest of friends during our time in school, reminiscing and catching up during all our meetings helped us create a new kind of friendship.  As we shared the many things we had in common, marriage, divorce, children, and a multitude of grandkids; we also promised to keep in touch after the reunion.  Life does have a way of moving right along and twenty-five years later, now planning our 50^th reunion, Helen and I never fulfilled our promise to stay in contact.  That is until I received a call from a mutual friend, Helen was in hospice.

Boom...Boom…Boom!  Each day the Boom…Boom…Boom of the encroaching onslaught of what we have so aptly named the "Boomer Generation" gets louder and louder.  We have tried everything to drown out the approaching sound by making 60 the new 40, with Botox injections, face lifts, knee and hip replacements, erectile enhancements and so much more, but the sound doesn’t go away.  It’s there in every creviced wrinkle and excruciating knee pain every morning as we get up to face the day, only to remind us how little we have prepared for this time in our lives.

“It’s time for hospice” – difficult words for families to hear.  As a family caregiver, you may have given some thought to the day when you would have to make that decision for an aging parent or other loved one – but you’re never quite prepared – not yet, why now?  The thought of hospice often brings about the impression that it’s a way of just “letting them die.”  Accepting the inevitable death of a loved one is an emotional hardship that no one is ever really prepared to face.  Although this is sometimes hard to face, the goal of  hospice care is to provide palliative care for terminally ill individuals while allowing them as well as their families to focus on their personal and spiritual needs as they prepare for the end of life.

Making a decision about placing a loved one under hospice care is difficult enough, finding the appropriate one and one that accommodates the family’s needs is yet another consideration. 

At the end of each of the chapters in her book, The Gift of Years – Growing Older Gracefully, author Joan Chittister writes a brief summary she calls the burden and the blessing.  Being present to someone who has experienced a loss through death, divorce or is grieving after having lost their job can often weigh us down; but can also provide us with abundant blessings. It is difficult to see a friend or loved one go through the grieving process and yet not allowing or recognizing the grieving will only delay what hopefully leads to acceptance or other type of resolution.

It’s difficult to understand a subject when most people don’t want to discuss it. Hospice sadly often falls into this category. As the topic is broached, thoughts of death quickly arise and conversations begin trailing off. Yet, the reality is that while hospice does mean taking the focus off of prolonging someone’s life, it does not mean giving up on life.