This is the second in a two part series about hospice care.
When the hospice nurse came to talk to Judith Ross’s family, which was gathered at her parents’ home in Connecticut for Thanksgiving last year, it was the first time anyone had spoken about her father’s impending death out loud. It was a powerful turning point for them.
Ross’s sister, who was working on a master’s degree in social work, was aware of the benefits of hospice and the appropriateness of the time for it, just then, for her family. She had arranged this meeting with an experienced hospice nurse.
“It allowed my mother to understand how hospice could benefit her and my father. It was very informative. We learned [that my father] could be cared for in their home,” said Ross, of Fox Point, in a recent interview.
“A hospice agency provided a nurse who came once a week, to start. A home health care aide came to help [my mother] bathe him. We were able to call the caregivers anytime and ask about his condition. As a daughter who was [living] out of town, I took advantage of it,” said Ross.
“I truly believe that my family was blessed with the presence of angels in all of the hospice care workers,” said Ross.
Debbie Zemel, too, was emphatic in her praise of the home health care aides who assisted her parents. “The caregivers who do this work are very special people. They are taking care of people in a very intimate way — sometimes more than the family,” she said in a telephone interview.
In 1979, when Zemel’s father, a Madison rabbi, died, hospice care was still in an early stage of development. His doctor came to his home and there were visiting nurses and “lay volunteers” to give her mother some respite. The medical care was excellent, Zemel said, but other support services were more informal at that time.
“It was a wonderful experience to have him at home. He was able to meet with his congregants at home until the end. It was very important [to us] to let him keep a sense of dignity even though his [bodily] functions were breaking down, ” Zemel said from her Whitefish Bay home.
By the time Zemel’s mother was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 1984 there was a home health care agency that came into her home.
“Having my parents at home enabled us to be there. It was an important time for our whole family,” she said.
‘Exquisitely sensitive’
Neither Ross nor Zemel felt any concern that euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide was an issue. “The philosophy of hospice, it seems to me, is not about death so much as it is about the palliative process of care for those who are close to passing on — a process that is exquisitely sensitive to the needs of those who are terminally ill, as well as to the needs of their family members,” said Ross.
Arleen Peltz began volunteering as an end-of-life companion after her husband, Walter, was a resdient at the Jewish Home and Care Center.
Arleen then became aware of Caring Partners, the home’s program that is designed to provide companionship for residents nearing death. “I knew I couldn’t become a full-fledged volunteer then,” she said.
Though Walter did not receive hospice care, Arleen was witness to many end-of-life situations and “saw the dignity with which it was handled by the staff and others,” she said.
Since her husband’s death last November, after a short “sabbatical,” Peltz has returned to the home as a volunteer. She spends Tuesdays and Thursdays with residents and helps when needed with Caring Partners.
“After Walter’s death I realized that his friends at the Jewish home had not only lost their friend, they had also lost their social life. I don’t think of it as work, but as visiting old friends and sometimes I make new ones. I want to do anything and everything I can for the residents.
“My experience was that my husband was treated with respect, and got the best medical care available. Now it’s time for me to give something back.
“End of life is a most important time,” said Peltz.
Zemel agreed. “I think what I learned through the whole process is that it is a very special time. There is so much to learn … what [the dying person] talks about, how he or she struggles with unresolved issues. [Being with your parents when they die] is the last loving thing you can do for them,” she said.
“And it makes me less frightened of death than I had been before.”
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