by Dr. Pat Hayes Home is where my heart is. When I’m home, I’m comfortable. I get satisfaction out of sitting in my favorite chair, looking out the window at my backyard, even eating off the plates my wife picked out. I imagine if I were dealing with a terminal illness, little things like that…
“Facing the end of life takes courage, perhaps especially for the family members of patients,” says Pamela Goddard, Hospicare volunteer. “Facing that approaching loss is a difficult thing. But, we don’t have to face it alone. This is the real gift of hospice services—support for both patients and their family members at every step of…
Each year, on an evening in early June, the gardens of the Nina K. Miller Hospicare Center on Ithaca’s South Hill glow with light. Visitors stroll our garden paths, which are lined with 300 luminarias, many dedicated to someone who has died. At the end of the evening a lighted canoe glides across our pond…
The Dryden Barber Shop has been in business 30 years, and Sylvia Short, the shop’s owner, wanted to throw an anniversary party. In keeping with the shop’s tenth, twentieth and twenty-fifth anniversaries, this party would be a fundraiser for a charity, but which one? “I thought, everyone loves Hospicare,” she says. “There’s not one person…
At dawn on Saturday, August 12, 2017 more than 300 women will swim 1.2 miles across Cayuga Lake for Women Swimmin’ for Hospicare. Women Swimmin’ is a community swim—not a race—that raises money in support of Hospicare & Palliative Care Services. Registration for this community swim opens Monday, May 1 at 6:00 a.m.
Advance directives provide a road map to future healthcare and are important documents everyone should have. They can include a healthcare proxy (someone you designate to make decisions about your healthcare if you are incapacitated); a living will (guidelines about the type of care you want or do not want); and a Medical Orders for Life Sustaining Treatment (MOLST) form (a document signed by your doctor outlining the type of care you want and who can make decisions for you). But how do you make the important decisions necessary to fill out these forms? The following are some suggestions you may find helpful as you think about your own advance directives.
by Dr. Pat Hayes Those of you who know me may have heard me talk about how important volunteers are to hospice. They provide crucial help to patients and their families, especially to family members who are in need of respite. Hospicare & Palliative Care Services, our hospice provider, offers patients and their families the…
by Laura Ward, LMFT As part of my work with grieving children and teens, I’m always looking for new ways to talk about grief that feel both safe and interesting. One of the ways to accomplish this is by reading books to children that explain death and grief. Some books, especially those for children, focus…
Would you like to volunteer with Hospicare? We depend on over 100 volunteer community members to help our agency carry out our work. Our trained volunteers visit patients in their homes or assisted care facilities, offering practical help and companionship. They also assist the agency in other ways, depending on their interests and backgrounds. What…
by Dr. Pat Hayes Talking to an ill loved one about hospice can be hard. It’s awkward and uncomfortable for most of us. We fear offending the other person, or worse, causing them emotional pain. I’ve seen this huge reluctance to even mention the word “hospice” in both family members and in physicians. But if…