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What is Yolo Hospice's gift to you

 “The thing I play over and over is this incredible gift. My dad decided he wanted to be at his home. I was able to have the talk – that heart-to-heart father-to-son talk – in the comfort of our own home that would not have been as comfortable in a hospital,” Matt Lauer of NBC’s Today Show was quoted as saying in the November 30, 2010 edition of the Palm Beach Pulse online. Lauer’s father died in hospice care in Palm Beach in 1997. Lauer has been advocating and fundraising for the hospice ever since.

That hospice is a gift is not the first realization in the minds of those less familiar or fearing the need for hospice services. Deciding to call hospice and actually calling hospice are steps in the realization and acceptance process that can be agonizing for the patient and loved ones. If hospice could be understood ahead of time, as the gift it can be, the decision to call would be less complicated for all involved. Yolo Hospice is here to support the decision-making process, making it easier for the individuals with life-limiting illness and their loved ones.

Janet Kappes, is a community board member for Yolo Hospice. After her uncle’s experience with Yolo Hospice, she agrees that the service is a genuine gift. “When my Dad died, we didn’t have hospice. I wish we had. It would have been easier for Mom to have had Yolo Hospice’s support. My uncle did have Yolo Hospice services. Mr. Lauer is right about hospice facilitating the ability to communicate – to have those talks. Yolo Hospice truly supports the relationships of the patient and loved ones.”

Hospice provides services that support both the patient and family members. Yolo Hospice’s mission is to ensure they are treating the whole person – mind, body and spirit. Therefore, Yolo Hospice team members specifically assist with emotional issues like familial relationships, and all team members keep an open eye and ear to ensure the patient and family get access to the team specialists they need.

The Yolo Hospice team always includes a registered nurse to ensure that physical comfort and symptoms are well managed. A social worker is available to consult about additional concerns and resources. If the patient would like to discuss spiritual matters, spiritual care counselors are available to talk, listen or engage in life review. If there is need for an extra hand or companionship, Yolo Hospice will assign a patient care volunteer. Hospice aides help with personal care, and the bereavement team can help loved ones in their grief.

“Hospice is a gift,” said Trish Timothy emphatically. Timothy is another community board member whose family has received care from Yolo Hospice. “One of Yolo Hospice’s gifts to us came from the bereavement counselor who saw us as a family – a very large family – all together. Because we did it together, people who likely wouldn’t have normally sought help got it. I’m grateful for that.”

Yolo Hospice is a not a place, it’s a program that helps care for people wherever they call “home.” Traditionally, a home is someone’s house or apartment, but not always.  Yolo Hospice has served patients who have called “home” a room in a retirement facility, a hotel room, a trailer, or residential care facility. Where the patient calls home does not matter, as long as it is in Yolo Hospice’s service area of Yolo, Solano, Sacramento, Colusa and Sutter Counties, Yolo Hospice is available to support you where you call home.

“One of the best gifts was being able to care for my mother,” said Timothy. “She was at home like Lauer’s father, but for us it was being able to care for her ourselves that was the gift. None of us had a medical background. We didn’t know how to administer her medication or even how to give her a bath. Yolo Hospice taught us how to do all that. Mom could barely talk, but she managed to thank us for caring for her.”

Yolo Hospice trains family and caregivers to care for their loved one with confidence. They also provide hospice aides who can help with personal hygiene and basic housekeeping chores related to the patient. Trained patient care volunteers are also available to give loved ones a few hours of respite by sitting with the patient or running errands to help make the day easier.

“I imagine hospice is a gift to everyone in some way,” said Timothy. “For the care of another family member, it was the ability to get the equipment they needed to better care for our loved one and that Yolo Hospice was there to call any time there was a question or concern.”

Yolo Hospice is available by phone, 24-hours a day, whenever a patient needs assistance. The patient, family and caregivers always have a registered nurse to call.

According to Merriam Webster online (December 2010), a gift is something voluntarily transferred by one person to another without compensation.

Not having to worry about compensation to Yolo Hospice may be the greatest gift to someone in need of hospice care. With Yolo Hospice, you don’t have to worry about money for services. Yolo Hospice accepts Medicare, and most other insurance. As the only community-based, not-for-profit hospice in our service area, Yolo Hospice never turns anyone away due to an inability to pay. In addition, costs for medical equipment like hospital beds for the home, supplies such as gauze bandages and pain medications that you need are part of the service.

The next time you have the opportunity to talk about hospice and end-of–life issues, please think about what gift hospice might offer you. If you already see hospice as a gift and would like to share it with Yolo Hospice, please email modbert@yolohospice.org or go to www.facebook.com. Search for Yolo Hospice’s business page, choose the “Like” button and leave a message there.

The Yolo Hospice Board of Directors, staff and volunteers wish you and all our community a joyous holiday season and healthy New Year.

To learn more about hospice or if think you may need services, call Yolo Hospice at (530) 758-5566. Yolo Hospice will also help you identify what type of help you do need even if that need is not for hospice.

 

 

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