Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Life's Last Breath: The Blessings of Hospice

Why would I want to be a hospice volunteer?

By Richard E. Reed
For the Beacon

Why would I want to spend time with, to even think of caring for, a stranger? I have always been afraid of death and dying; I’m even afraid of getting sick. I have enough problems of my own, and I’m still young, sort of, and I have a lot of living to do.

Well, it took me a while to change my mind.

I first become a volunteer at McKenzie-Willamette Hospital after I cut my leg with a chain saw. They fixed me up so beautifully that I had to show some gratitude. I became their part-time mailman, delivering information and packages to every one of the hospital’s departments, even to the emergency room where I had already spent some not-volunteer time.

I soon became accustomed to seeing and being with sick people, and dying people, and babies just born. I realized there was a rhythm to life: being born, living, getting sick and old, and dying.

Most people want to die at home, but too many die in the hospital. I saw empty beds that used to hold sick people with whom I had become acquainted as I walked the corridors and special units; many of them did not check out of the hospital to go home.

Soon I heard about hospice, a program in which dying people could remain in their own beds at home. I began asking around and one thing led to another. I’ve been a hospice volunteer for over five years now and have cared for many wonderful, dying people.

Amazingly, it is the most important, the most rewarding thing I have ever done in my long life. I will continue to be a hospice volunteer until someone else volunteers for me.

Why? Let me tell you about Mr. B. I met Mr. B, in his 80’s, in a small, bare nursing home room with only a leafless myrtle tree and a few sparrows outside the one window to keep him company. He was a loner. He had no family, and he lay dying in the last stages of emphysema and a failing heart. The first time I saw him, Mr. B was lying naked under a sheet, skin and bones, hardly able to breathe.

I was taught in my hospice training that my job as a volunteer was to spend time with the patient for an hour or more, one or two times a week, to ease the strain on the loved-one who was giving care at home, or to offer personal contact and help to a patient in a care facility. The best advice I was ever given, was “to sit down, shut up, and listen.”

I did just that as I sat beside Mr. B’s bed, watching him struggle for breath, wondering if he would be like many of my other hospice clients whom I visited only once or twice, after which they promptly died. As if to answer my thoughts, Mr. B opened one eye, his grizzled beard hiding a lean jaw and blue grey lips. “Who in the hell are you?” he whispered.

I told him, and added that I was there to spend some time with him. He chewed on that for a while, then opened the other bloodshot eye. “What good is that?” he said, closing both eyes.

Over the weeks, I came back and continued being there with him, listening to the oxygen pump keeping him alive, hearing the moaning, the calling out and the crying from the rooms around us, aware of the facility staff passing by in the hallway. Little by little, he began to open his eyes during my visits, and tell me his story.

Mr. B was born in Mississippi; both his parents died when he was still a child. He grew up in an Catholic orphanage where most of the nuns were uninterested, but one nun who played the piano, took an interest in him. From her, he learned not only to play but to love music; he grew passionate about beautiful music and the great classical music traditions of the ages. As a grown man, he never found a real job, never used his love of music to earn a living. He had spent most of his long life being alone, traveling the rails throughout the West as a hobo, looking out of the dusty windows of fleabag hotels when flush, and sleeping under bridges when penniless.

But Mr. B loved music. And I loved music. I would come to the care facility for an hour and stay for two, arguing with him about who was the best German composer of the 19th Century, or which conductor did a better job with Mozart.

After a week or two, he propped up his head on his pillow; soon after, he began to sit up in bed, his birdlike chest heaving with every argument. In a month, I came into his room to find him wearing pajama tops. After another month, I would find him standing, clothed, brushing his teeth when I arrived.

I learned more from Mr. B about music and about being a human being than I learned in all the colleges I had attended and all of the philosophy I had ever read. In the ten months I spent being a friend to Mr. B, I saw his health deteriorate, then rebound. At times, he could hardly lift his head from his pillow, but he often grew more animated as we talked. He began to tell me about his fear of dying and fear of the unknown. We talked about how growing old was not for sissies. Then we would talk about music and argue until he fell asleep.

On December 30, I visited Mr. B. Several care facility and hospice professionals were crowded around his bed. I knew Mr. B was really and truly dying this time. After they left, Mr. B opened that one eye again. “Richard,” he whispered, “talk to me.”

I sat down beside him and held his bony hand. I talked to him about music. I talked to him about living and dying. I sang songs and recited a few halting lines of poetry while he slipped into unconsciousness.

On New Year’s Eve, I called the care facility and talked with the head nurse on duty. Mr. B was resting comfortably, she assured me. I asked her if she would sit with him for a while that night, just to be there with him. She promised me that she would.

On January 2nd of that New Year, one of the social workers at Cascade Hospice called me. Mr. B had passed away on the first morning of the New Year with little pain.

Cascade Hospice, a non-profit organization originally created by Springfield’s own McKenzie-Willamette Hospital, is dedicated to providing medical care and comfort to a patient after his or her doctor has decided that the patient has six or less months to live. Cascade provides a dedicated staff of doctors, nurses, social workers, even massage and bathing specialists for in-home care or nursing home care to ease the distress of the patient and the burden on the patient’s care giving loved one or loving friend.

The telephone number of Cascade Hospice at Cascade Health Solutions is 228-3050. Sacred Heart Medical Center also has a fine hospice program at 461-7550.

Richard Reed: The Art of Aging - Caring for Loved Ones



Caring for the one you love

By Richard E. Reed

For the Beacon

“I take you to be my lifelong partner, to have and hold from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, until death do us part.”

Do these words sound familiar? Did you say them at your wedding? Did you think something similar when you decided that this special person is going to be your life partner for ever and ever? Do you still feel this loving commitment to your spouse? Have you committed yourself in an equally meaningful fashion to your aging parents or to a deeply loved friend?

When we make this wonderful, exciting, life changing decision, few of us think of that faraway time when we may not only be the mutually satisfying partner, best friend, or happy child of that loved one, but also his or her full time caregiver.

For every person who can no longer care for himself or herself because of aging, disease, dementia, or the myriads of other end-of-life difficulties, there is usually a caring, giving person who remains, with either the earnest desire or the obligation to care for the loved one who is now in ultimate need.

Fifty-two million people in America currently provide care to an adult partner, friend or family member. Nearly one out of every four households is the center of care giving for someone over age 50; an additional seven million Americans are long-distance caregivers for older relatives.

Are you ready for this life changing, often career ending experience? Is the person who will now be dependent on your daily care, ready to accept his or her new passive role in life?

It is important for all of us to begin thinking and planning for this final most important episode in life. It is necessary for you and your loved one to plan now for all the possibilities and to begin instituting procedures for all of the aging and end-of-life steps each of you will be required to take. Invite your loved one to go with you on this journey of ultimate discovery. You will both learn how to help one another as you grow older, wiser, and more self-reliant entering those final “golden years”.

And, of course, the extraordinary secret of our lives is that we never know until then who the caregiver will be and who will be the one that finally receives the care.

In the next few essays, I will explore with you many helpful hints which can set both of your lives in order, so that you and the one you love will enjoy many happy, healthy, stress-free “golden years” together.

For future essays on The Art of Aging, please see Richard's blog at www.artofaging.blogspot.com

Wednesday, February 6, 2008

Exploring Willamalane Adult Activity Center

Have you visited WAAC lately?

By Richard E. Reed
For the Beacon

For new residents or old-timers, The Willamalane Adult Activity Center is the place to begin our exploration of the many “quality of life” treasures in and around our Springfield community. Nestled in the heart of downtown, surrounded by beautiful Island Park and easy parking, this Center has become a mecca of recreation, learning, arts classes and fitness activities always available to friend-finding, fun-seeking and life-loving people in their early 50s to spry 90 year-olds and beyond.



Diane Pergamit, the program manager of this spacious and beautifully designed facility, relates the Center’s success to a creative mix of programs that appeal to people of all ages. “Anyone can pick up our program guide and find something that appeals to their needs; lectures, trips, walking or dancing or discussion groups, literally dozens of social and life-long learning activities right here, right now.”

Entering the welcoming double doors of the Center will give even the most sophisticated big city visitor a feeling of “wow!” Smiling staff and volunteers, a charming coffee shop, big over-stuffed chairs in a comfortable setting look out at the park’s green expanse and the rippling waters of the Willamette River. As we stand in the light-filled entrance, we can hear the soft buzz of conversations and laughter from the billiard parlor, the large dance and activities hall, the ceramics studio, book discussion room, computer learning class, woodworking and lapidary shops. The Center’s participants were all too eager to relate their own varied experiences at this amazing facility.

“I’ve always wanted to learn line dancing,” says Rebecca Hazen, 67 years old and recently retired. “But I never had the time. Our teacher, Iris, goes over the dance steps slowly and carefully. In my class there are over thirty of us, mostly women in their 50s to late 80s, along with some brave men, and we have a ball! We dance to everything from “Little Light of Mine” to country western tunes and Elvis-type rock ‘n roll.”

“I have to exercise every day because of diabetes,” she continues, “and this is the best exercise ever. And with the bike paths right outside the Center, I can bike and walk, too. I tell you, this is the coolest, most wonderful adult center there is.”

Virginia Matteson, 71 years young, is staying that way because of the Center’s Tai Chi and Quqong exercise classes. “I’ve been going to these classes for two years now, and it gives me more strength and better balance. Our teacher makes sure every one participates and has a good time. It helps me to really relax and feel better, and it keeps my body and mind busy.”

Virginia volunteers in the Center’s gift shop; she’s also learning to play billiards and spends time in the ceramics studio. She also walks along the river with her group every week.

Dick Jones, 76, who teaches wood carving at the Center, asked a friend to teach a Thai cooking class at the Center so he could participate. “Now I’m on the Center’s advisory committee and I’m really hooked on all of the vitality and creativity of this place. Why, there are over 400 volunteers at our Center. I just read a study that says people who volunteer live four years longer. I believe it!

Mary Rice, in her 60s, also volunteers, enjoys the craft classes and participates in the day and overnight trips the Center offers. “My mother was a member when the Center started, and now that I’m retired, I can do it, too. I love the pottery and jewelry-making classes. But best of all, I love those trips! I don’t like to drive, and thanks to the Center I have been to the Roseburg History Museum, the Portland Museum of Art and the Carousel Museum in Hood River; I was even on a paddlewheel boat on the Columbia River.”

“There’s something for everyone here,” Mary exclaims. “It gives me a chance to make new friends. It gives me a chance to stay in touch with life!”

Most communities, as well as our own Springfield, are experiencing “The Silver Tsunami”, or the surge of aging America. The number of people 65 and older in 1940 was nine million, in 2000 it was thirty five million, and in 2030 it is projected to be over seventy one million seniors.

Our local divisions of government as well as the Willamalane Adult Activity Center are meeting the challenge and opportunities of this surge in the number of older adults. “We’ve doubled our fitness offerings during the last eight years,” says Diane Pergamit. “We’ve acquired a bigger bus for our day trips and overnight outings. We’re offering daily lunch, van transportation, legal assistance, support groups. We serve 350 or more people on an average day with 15 to 25 different programs each day.”

As I watch the dozens of adults of all ages talking, laughing, playing table tennis or reading in a quiet corner, I realize there are few places I would rather be than this extraordinary community center in any kind of Oregon weather. Thousands of Springfield residents have been coming here for the last twenty years for that very reason. With the continued dedication and imagination of the Willamalane staff and its broad community support, our growing-up children and grandchildren will be coming here too.

Try it. You’ll like it. From 8:30 in the morning ‘till after 8:30 at night, except Sundays. At 215 West “C” Street, Springfield, OR 97477. Telephone: 736-4444. E-mail: netmail@willamalane.org.