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The Hospice Perspective  

If you are a friend or relative of a terminally ill individual, you may be frustrated with the impersonal aspects of hospital visits and the limited access to your loved one. You may be grieved by the level of pain your friend experiences with their declining condition, especially when you can do nothing for them yourself. The fact that someone has six months or less remaining on this earth does not negate the truth that this individual still has the right to be treated with respect and importance. Knowing that there is no cure for an illness should not diminish a person’s value, but increase their desire to live each moment to the fullest.

This is when hospice and palliative care can open doors and resources to all involved with terminal illness. Very few people want to be treated as mere patients or case numbers. Most want to be regarded as human beings with rights and passions and preferences. Quality of life and dignity are terms closely related to hospice because it puts the caregiving into the hands of those who truly care on a personal level—you.  

When you help enrol your loved one into hospice care, you are helping to provide not only pain relief and symptom control, but also emotional encouragement and spiritual enrichment for them and for yourself during these end of life moments. A hospice nurse is assigned routine home care and volunteers are available to offer you some respite as they engage with your friend in everyday activities; but you are fully involved in care and decision making.

The hospice perspective that each day is worth treasuring inspires positivity and joy in the little things.  Is it time for you to embrace this outlook?

If you are the one with the terminal illness, you should know your options. Traditional medicine is geared toward finding cures and often involves isolating the ill patient while dealing with symptoms. Hospice is different. Since a cure is not available, hospice concentrates on pain management and symptom control, referred to as palliative care, while allowing you to choose how and with whom to spend the remainder of your life. You can celebrate each day among the living, attend recitals, sporting events and graduations; or you can check out mentally and emotionally before your time is up. 

You might ask yourself:

      *  Do I want to participate in the lives of those I care about; or do I want to pull away prematurely?

      *  Do I want to be comfortable and relatively pain free; or do I want to continue with unnecessary tests and debilitating treatments?

      *  Do I want to enjoy the company of those around me; or do I want to be watched at a distance by strangers?

      *  Do I want to be home among my friends at my homegoing; or do I want to be alone in an aesthetic institution when I pass?

Your answers to these questions just might present this fresh hospice perspective: Life is for the living and the dying, and death must wait its turn.  

At Gifted Hearts Hospice and Palliative Care in Seguin, TX, we offer you the best options in hospice and palliative care with the freshest perspective.

Gifted Hearts Hospice and Palliative Care in Seguin, TX, is a fully staffed facility available to patients who call South Central Texas their home.  It is nestled in the beautiful New Braunfels area as the best hospice near San Antonio, Texas.  It offers palliative care for patients of any age in any stage of illness.  It also offers all four levels of hospice care and maintains its motto: “Live until you Leave.”