Thanks FTS for giving me the opportunity to talk about Hospice work. Although I'm very passionate about it, I don't allow myself to expound on it too much for fear of exposing myself to be a zealot.

Your question was:
What do you find the most rewarding part of your hospice work ? What is the hardest part of it? Exactly what services do you perform, both for the patient and their family, and for how long? Have you met people who have affected you, and how have they?

The most rewarding part of Hospice is the fact that I'm given constant reminders of what is, and what isn't important in life. It seems that when I'm in most need of a 'nudge' of some sort, a reminder is presented to me while I'm participating in my volunteer work. It's almost something I've begun to count on, and it's certainly something I pay close attention to. I remember when I first started volunteering with Hospice, I was even more of a workaholic than I am now and my life was extremely out of balance. As I listened to these people who were at the end of their life, I rarely heard them talk about important work was to them. Family and friends were the things they spoke of. This was probably one of the largest lessons I've taken away from Hospice. My life is more in balance than it has ever been because I've placed work down the ladder a few pegs.

The hardest part of Hospice is to keep myself from becoming overwhelmed with emotion when I'm talking to a Hospice patient or their family. I'm an extremely empathetic person and tend to take on the emotions around me, whether it be at work, home or at Hospice. It's a fine line to walk when you want people to know that you truly care about their situation and welfare, but then stop short of becoming so emotional that they are no longer the center of attention. We are taught several techniques to keep from getting outwardly emotional and I use them a lot. It's important that I added the word "outwardly" in that last sentence because we cannot keep ourselves from feeling the emotion. That takes away from the human experience. The feeling is there, the trick is in not showing it too much.

It's also difficult to not take some of the work home and dwell on it. I found that especially hard when I was in patient care. It was difficult to grow to care about a family and then have to move on after the patient passes on. It is also difficult for the family to accept. I've had families want me to continue to come visit and care for them after their family member died. But I can not. It would not leave me time to care for new families.

When I first started with Hospice, I was in patient care. This meant that I would visit patients in their homes and care for them while their primary care givers went out and ran errands or did things for themselves for rejuvenation. I've had patients that have lived for almost the full six months, and patients that I never met. Hospice is designed for people who have a life expectancy of six months or less to live. More often than not, patients are referred to Hospice or 'give in' to Hospice only days before they are gone. There are several factors for that, which I won't expand upon here. I am sad when this happens because people who have experienced Hospice go on and on about how much better their life quality was after they started Hospice services. 'Our' job is to make things comfortable for the patient and easier for the family.

In patient care, I'd do anything from just sitting in a room and reading, to full on patient care (washing, shaving, changing beds, changing bed pans, etc.) You are not required to do anything, but are allowed to do as much as you're comfortable with, with the exception of administering medications. This was something we were not legally allowed to do. I think that was the part that scared me the most. What if the patient was in severe pain while their family was gone and needed it and I couldn't give it? This never happened, but I was always on guard.

Now I am in grief and bereavement support. My job is to call the families of people who have passed on and perform a grief assessment. We listen to them to see if they are having issues over and above 'normal' grieving. There really is no such thing as 'normal' grieving, because everyone does it in their own way, but there are things that are abnormal. Suicidal thoughts, closing off from the outside world, violence, etc. I listen for hints of any of those things in our conversations and refer them to our staff counselor if necessary. But normally, I just listen. Some calls are five minutes of "I'm fine" and "I don't need anything", to an hour of just listening. There have been calls that have affected me to such a degree that I need to get up and walk around the gardens for a while before I can continue. There are calls that have made me blush. There have been many calls that have connected me in such a way with the person on the other end of the phone that I wanted to hang up and go hang out at their dining room table with them. Those calls are the most rewarding for me. It's the connection of talking spirit to spirit. It's almost palpable.

If I could pass on one thing I've learned about grief it would be to reach out to as many people as possible and use the grief support available to you whether it be church, Hospice support services, or whatever. The people who actively participate in their own well being are the ones who do well. It's almost like night and day. Many of the people who take an active part in their own well being go on to offer their support to other people. It's really rewarding to hear about their journey.

While this answer is getting rather long, I don't want to end before answering the last bit of the question: Have you met people who have affected you, and how have they?

Everyone I touch through Hospice (well, except the "I'm fine" phone calls) affects me in one way or another, but there are two people who have affected me over and above anyone else. One was my first Hospice patient. She reminded me of myself- the overdoing self. She held tight to the same things I hold dear. Family, independence and service to others. I met her while she was still able to get up and around. She didn't have a lot of energy, so she used me as her conduit to do things for her family. She'd have me cook dinner for her husband EXACTLY the way she cooked for him. It was important to her. She supervised me while I cleaned her house EXACTLY like she would have. Eventually, she didn't have the energy to even do that and she started giving up those things. At first it was very difficult for her do to this and she cried from the sheer frustration that she couldn't 'DO' anymore. When she gave in and allowed others to 'do' for her, she did it with grace and I hope that I'll be able to do the same when my time comes.

The other was a 50+ year old man with ALS, an insidious disease the slowly robs you of the use of your muscles; eventually rendering you unable to breathe. I think it's the cruelest of diseases because your mind is very clear up to the end.

This man used to be very active as a volunteer with forest trail cleanup. When I met him he didn't have any use of his body anymore and took a long time to gather enough breath to get many words out. He was in the Hospice house while his family went out of of town for a wedding, so I only had the opportunity to meet him once. It was my job to feed him lunch on the day that we met. Due to his lack of muscle control, lunch was a two hour process. Since he couldn't talk and eat, I talked to him about various things. Eventually, I got on the topic of a hike I took the previous day. It was then that I saw his eyes light up, so I knew I hit on a topic that was very dear to him. What I remember so clearly about this man is that even though he had to speak very slowly, I could *feel* the passion behind every word when he spoke of the forests and trails. It made me so sad that this man who was clearly such an avid hiker could no longer even feed himself.

Not too long after he died, I ran across some of the trail volunteers while on a hike to my favorite 'thinking spot'. I asked one of them if she knew him, but she didn't. I kept on hiking down to the bottom of the trail to my 'thinking rock'. There was another group of trail volunteers sitting by the falls eating their lunch. As I sat there and looked around at the beauty surrounding me, my thoughts were interrupted by the woman I had passed earlier. She invited me to come over to talk to the other trail workers because many of them did know this wonderful man. He was a part of their team. It was an emotional, almost spiritual time for all of us as we talked about all of the things that this man had contributed and what a wonderful human being he was. It was hard to not feel a spiritual connection as we were surrounded by such beauty.

I dedicate every hike I go on to this man and I think about him several times during my hikes. Even though I only spent two hours with him, he's someone that I will remember forever.

If anyone reading this is interested in becoming a Hospice volunteer, please with questions you may have and I'll be happy to answer them.

Thank you again, FTS, for allowing me the opportunity to write about something that brings me a lot of joy.