Reunions

I find I attend many reunions lately. They aren't exactly barbecues or picnics and don't require any preparation, travel, or fuss. They are reunions of the mind, heart, and spirit. My mother lives with me, but at the same time, she resides in a place of retrospection, often relating any news story of today to a story in her past, exposing the threads of time that bind us in our experiences. These threads are her oral history and her gift. I need only gather them in the moment and understand that they are passed along for safe-keeping, and meant to be shared when the time is right. Our memories are medicine. They morph over time. Like a potent elixir, the right memory applied to a particular ill can soothe better than any painkiller or amnesiac. It's not always in forgetting that we are calmed, but in remembering that first kiss, newborn baby, or view from a mountaintop. I'm collecting her moments, so I can conjure them up when she'll need them most, and so I can smile along with her, when we both might rather weep.

Fragile state of hospice

The House of Representatives approved it's version of the economic stimulus plan on Wednesday, which includes $134 million for Medicare funded hospice programs. It also delays the already approved Medicare budget cuts to hospice for another year. This isn't perfect, but it's welcome news for those in hospice right now.

Still, everyone should realize that the economy has hit hospice hard and we need to work to keep it for the future, our own future. The more of hospice I see, the more I like. Having had the (sad) opportunity to compare living situations in hospitals, assisted living, nursing homes, versus hospice care at home, there is really no comparison. Hospice at home is the best case scenario. To be able to stay with loved ones in your own bed, looking out your own window at your own backyard...well, enough said. If you care about this issue, call or write your representatives and be sure your voice is heard.

It Takes a Child to Remind Us

Sometimes it takes a child to remind us that we just don't have all the answers--and that's okay. As I sat in the audience with my brother and mother Saturday watching five kids sing and dance their way through a live show called, "Children's Letters to God," I could not help but laugh out loud and realize that many of their childish questions are the questions that endure over a lifetime. Watching these kids stop, look up, ask their question to God, then run off and get on with life was refreshing. We all stop and ask at different times "Why is all this happening? Why do people have to suffer?" The energy and raw curiosity of these kids gave mom a two hour reprieve--I'm sure she forgot that she had trouble breathing as she soaked in the presence of these mini actors that evoked fond memories of her own cast of characters years ago. She was shining in the audience and said she could not take her eyes off the littlest one with the larger than life personality. People of all ages have their crises...even little people. Some think the world will come to an end over a turtle dying or a bug being squished. But they speak their troubles out loud, get mad, sad, or sulk for a bit, and skip away. Life goes on. Lesson learned.

A Time to Remember

When I tell people that my mother lives with me and is in hospice care, they draw back in horror and say, "I'm sorry." I don't even try to explain that I'm happy with this situation, that we are spending amazing time together, as in we just watched all of Season One of Madmen on DVD with no commercial interruption while having cocktails. As in... we took an impromptu drive the other day and munched hamburgers and fries in front of a lake because it decided to be spring in late January. As in...she told me, over coffee, of the story of her date with Dad at age fifteen. He got tickets to the opera, Rigoletto at the Metropolitan Opera House from his older sister, Georgette. Spiffed up and sweating from nerves (it was cool out), he picked Mom up and they took the trolly from Tremont Avenue in the Bronx to Westchester Square subway station...got off the subway and Dad was lost, it was late so he hailed a cab. He jumped in after Mom and yelled at the cabbie, "Metropolitan Opera House". The cabbie looked at Dad squarely and said, "Sorry Sonny, can't take you there...it's right across the street." Mom said Dad was mortified. So began the many years of joy and sorrow she spent with Pop. Stories like these over coffee are golden nuggets. Mom looks fifteen again when she tells them. Who says hospice has to be so horrible?

Hospice Awareness

Hospice coverage has been cut back and hospice companies hit hard by the gas crisis and economy...a fact mom and I learned three weeks into her care with VITAS, the largest hospice company in the nation. Imagine our surprise when no sooner did we get acquainted with the hospice team and finished switching out all mom's oxygen tanks and meds, we heard that the Richmond VITAS hospice was closing down--her hospice nurse sat in our living room in a state of shock. "Everyone's been fired...we all have two or three weeks to move our patients over," she said sadly. Mom is now in the care of Bon Secours, St. Mary's Hospice- but the changeover was unnerving and we are glad she was not in crisis when it happened. Check out this article to understand more about the stimulus package and how it impacts this very important facet of our healthcare system and stay active in keeping this benefit covered under Medicare. Thanks :)
http://www.mercurynews.com/politics/ci_11565776?nclick_check=1