Hospice: It’s not necessarily what you think
by Karin L Nauber
“We cannot change the outcome but we can affect the journey.” ~Ann Richardson
When you think of the word “hospice” what is the first thing that comes to your mind?
For 95% of the people I asked this of in an informal survey, it was death.
And in a way they are correct, but hospice is more than just caring for someone who is about to die. It is about the journey in between before someone passes to the other side that makes hospice a comfort to the hundreds of thousands of families who use the services every year.
CentraCare Home Health & Hospice Community Outreach Analyst Nola Varilek put it quite nicely, “We live until we die. Keep that in perspective. We need to let people know that accepting hospice care does not mean they are going to die tomorrow.”
Many people also believe that hospice care is only for the elderly. It’s not. It is for every age. However, CentraCare is one of the only ones outside of the Twin Cities that provides hospice care to infants and children.
Varilek told the story of a man who had a terminal brain tumor. CentraCare was able to offer grief support specialists who were able to work with his children and even his adult siblings who were having a hard time coping with this.
She also talked about some of the things they were able to do for a 12-year-old girl who was on hospice care.
“We were able to give her a trip to the Mall of America and an overnight stay there for her and her family. It made a great memory for Katie and her family,” shared Varilek....
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