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hospice QUOTES

hospice QUOTES

1 " Of course, it’s now obvious why he was so angry that day. People don’t move into hospice to live but to die. And that half an egg sandwich I ended up making him–that sandwich was the last meal he ate in our Haight-Ashbury apartment, our one true home. "

― Alysia Abbott , Fairyland: A Memoir of My Father

2 " I saw the apartment almost as a sanatorium, a hospice clinic for my own recovery. I painted the walls in the warmest colors I could find and bought myself flowers every week, as if I were visiting myself in the hospital. "

― Elizabeth Gilbert , Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia

3 " It hadn't occurred to me that my mother would die. Until she was dying, the thought had never entered my mind. She was monolithic and insurmountable, the keeper of my life. She would grow old and still work in the garden. This image was fixed in my mind, like one of the memories from her childhood that I made her explain so intricately that I remembered it as if it were mine. She would be old and beautiful like the black-and-white photo of Georgia O'Keeffe I'd once sent her. I held fast to this image for the first couple of weeks after we left the Mayo Clinic, and then, once she was admitted to the hospice wing of the hospital in Duluth, that image unfurled, gave way to the others, more modest and true. I imagined my mother in October; I wrote the scene in my mind. And then the one of my mother in August and another in May. Each day that passed, another month peeled away. "

― Cheryl Strayed , Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail

4 " When I reflect on the stories of death supported by hospice care and contrast it with our story depicting an absence of support, I find myself dealing with envy and anger. I have channeled those emotions into this book with the hope that hearing our story might give someone else a chance to create a better ending to the life of a loved one. "

― Lisa J. Shultz , A Chance to Say Goodbye: Reflections on Losing a Parent

5 " A paradigm shift of viewing palliative care or hospice as a gift instead of seeing it as giving up has the potential to change the way we experience advanced age. "

― Lisa J. Shultz , A Chance to Say Goodbye: Reflections on Losing a Parent

6 " Last Comforts” was born when one nagging question kept arising early in my journey as a hospice volunteer. Why were people coming into hospice care so late in the course of their illness? That question led to many others that rippled out beyond hospice care. Are there better alternatives to conventional skilled nursing home operations? How are physicians and nurses educated about advanced illness and end-of-life care? What are more effective ways of providing dementia care? What are the unique challenges of minority and LGBT people? What is the role of popular media in our death-denying culture? What has been the impact of public policy decisions about palliative and hospice care?

The book is part memoir of lessons learned throughout my experiences with patients and families as a hospice volunteer; part spotlight on the remarkable pathfinders and innovative programs in palliative and late-life care; and part call to action.

I encourage readers – particularly my fellow baby boomers -- not only to make their wishes and goals clear to friends and family, but also to become advocates for better care in the broader community. "

― Ellen Rand , Last Comforts: Notes from the Forefront of Late Life Care