What do we think when we hear the word 'hospice'? Face it, you probably think 'they are a goner' and wait for a funeral notice. How supportive and positive is that?
I have long suspected that hospices are not as bad as we think. Yes they offer palliative care when patients get to the point where they are no more treatment options. But they offer an alternative to nasty treatments. If you were the patient, how do you want to spend your last days/weeks/months?
Choice A is undergoing aggressive treatment which cause all sorts of nasty side effects resulting in discomfort and unpleasantness and you are either a patient at the hospital or taking frequent/daily trips for addition medical adventures? Choice B is receiving palliative care where your comfort is of utmost importance that is offered either in the privacy of our own home or at a facility which is quiet and full of caring people focusing on pain and your and your family's emotions?
Me I want choice B? I am a wienie. I do not want to die full of tubes and pain. I want to to go quietly (after trying as many options as are available). I do not want pain. I do not want to die alone in a hospital. Let me go write this down before I forget so that when the time comes my wishes are honored. (Damn, I'm turning in to my grandmother who had an 'in case of death' envelope - 2 by the time she died at 96 - full of little pieces of paper with instructions.)
A friend of mine who died from breast cancer a few years
ago was receiving hospice care at home. I visited her about a week
before she died and brought her take out Pad Thai. She was happy,
cheerful, and on oxygen. Her mother and step father were visiting for a
few weeks. But while there was no hope for treatment, she spent her last
days pain free, living with her family and visiting with friends.
That's the way it should be.
Hospices are trying to rebrand themselves in terms of the care they offer. People think of hospices probably just as you do - the goner thing. But hospices offer palliative care for months where people actually live longer and more comfortably than those undergoing aggressive last minute treatment.
One of the problems is doctors are referring people to hospices later and later. There are several theories on this including costs - hospice care costs less than hospital care but that means the hospitals lose the income from the patients. Also, doctors may be hesitant to admit they can no longer help a patient and by referring them to hospice, they are admitting defeat
Me I'll be signing up for hospice care when I need it. But I hope that is many years from now.
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