Re: Commentary: Hospice care deserves improved support
Enabling home palliative end of life care for the dying is a great idea. I experienced this first-hand. A colleague of mine was dying of esophageal cancer. He had only a few weeks left and wanted to die at home.
This was 40 years ago and hospices were basically unheard of, and it wasn't going to be allowed till I stepped in and offered to care for him in his home.
Due to my medical training and experience in maintaining intravenous lines as well as being able to assure that he would be getting the correct level of pain medications, they were hard pressed to refuse.
So I took holiday time and cared for Derek one of the last weeks of his life. His brother-in-law, a registered nurse, came for the second and final week. Without us, that wouldn't have happened. Derek was most appreciative.
I encouraged him to do things he didn't think he could anymore. He said he would love to eat a steak and drink a glass of a good red wine but couldn't because he couldn't swallow.
I said you don't have to swallow, just chew the steak and enjoy the flavour and then spit it out. Likewise with the wine; drink, savour and then spit it out.
I thus fed him his last steak dinner and his last glass of red wine. He was delighted. Thinking outside the box enabled me to give him as happy an end of life as was possible under the circumstances. I'm proud to have been able to do that for him.
Darrel Florence,
Cremona
