landotheripper

Absolutely, I primarily go to patients homes/houses, but also go to nursing facilities and some of those folks really are abandoned, we are told by patient and facility staff that we are the only company that this patient gets. I am actually going to work 12 hours on Christmas Day to visit patients in nursing homes who otherwise wouldn't have anybody to spend Christmas with.

Also, Ive actually cared for a man who was actually homeless, we got the hospice referral from his Dr and were told that his address was literally under a bridge on the West Side of Cleveland. We used to drive out and bring him food and a thermos full of hot coffee. We were fortunate enough to place him in a homeless shelter in downtown Cleveland where he dies a few days afterwards. That is actually one of the prouder moments of my life.

In my experience, when someone dies, there seems to be an overwhelming sense of calmness and peace, its eerie actually. Only real "paranormal/unexplainable" experience was a candle (at least 10 feet away) being blown out at precisely the same time of death of a patient, they took their last breath and the candle went out.

I get told by patients all the time that all they want is to die, especially if they have a painful and debilitating disease such a cancer. Im actually one who completely agrees with what Dr. Kevorkian did, he provided a way out for people who had a terminal disease, were suffering and "lingering". Many of my patients are miserable, have uncontrollable pain, no quality of life and just want expedite their dying process.

I have, not often but definitely have. For example, a couple of years ago I cared for a man who's diagnosis was Chronic Liver Disease, I cared for him for about a year and a half and we did develop a great friendship, especially because he was 52 years old and still able to walk around, cook, and even drive. This was also a patient who was on the brink of entering "stable status", this is when a hospice patient is no longer exhibiting hospice symptoms, essentially are no longer seen as they're gonna die within 6 months. I remember me calling him on a Friday afternoon to see how he was and he had told me that he had a pain in his stomach but that he felt alright, the unfortunate thing was that the next Monday (I don't work on weekends) I find out that he had died the the before on Sunday. It was by far the most devastating death Ive ever experienced while at this job. We are, obviously, encouraged not to get too attached to patients but this patient was special, we became friends.

Family members are usually on board with the fact that their loved one is under hospice care. of course we also get families who, unfortunately, are in denial of the hospice diagnosis, we have a Hospice Social Worker who are involved with these types of families. Families who are in this sort of denial are very hard to speak to, we try to see things their way but sometimes their way truly is very unreasonable and unrealistic. Its very difficult to say anything though, I can only tell them that I'm deeply sorry and that their loved one will be cared for very well and will be kept comfortable until they inevitably die.