Hospice - A Blessing

By Alicia and Mike

All reports from Sheelagh about the hospice nurses and staff have been positive. Sheelagh says they are just wonderful. In some ways, she and I regret not calling hospice sooner. But finally going with hospice was a hard choice. We thought of hospice as if you were "giving up".

For mom to get hospice services, she had to get a "prescription" from her oncologist in Utah. That is, mom and we had to choose to stop taking the chemotherapy drugs. The drugs were the only treatment left for mom, and so we had to stop that treatment in order to start hospice treatment. Mike had a friend/coworker (Brad) who's wife was a hospice nurse and Mike sent him an email. Brad's wife said that sometimes families would wait too long, like, there would have been things the hospice nurse could have done to really help, but by the time the family called, it was too late.

This past week, hospice sent over a Chaplin to answer any spiritual questions or just talk. He asked if Sheelagh had "a faith" and if she needed to talk about it. Sheelagh told him that we were religious and ok. He was a very nice man, but a little hard to get to leave. He seemed to linger and finally left when they kids came home from school.