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Hospice Volunteers give, get
May 20, 2007 Enterprise article by Pam Eimers
Early each morning, Libby McGill, a UC Davis Arboretum gardener, dons her bright green regulation T-shirt and vest. She then sets out to prune and plant, water and dig – all the painstaking work she must do to maintain this botanical gem on campus.
Each season brings a new phase of life and death in the Arboretum and a new set of chores, but she loves the peacefulness of the Arboretum and relishes the hard outdoor work.
Once a week McGill assumes a very different role – that of a Yolo Hospice patient care volunteer. She completed the required 24-hour training last summer and began seeing patients last fall.
“Most people are surprised,” McGill says, when they learn of her new role. “They think it’s an unusual volunteer activity.”
She started volunteering because she’d heard good things about hospice and had read an article about hospice volunteers.
“I went to the website to learn more. I found myself, at this stage of my life, being really drawn to this kind of activity.”
McGill says that she had no expectations when she started volunteering. She knows each situation will be different and she’s comfortable going with the flow.
“People have been amazingly generous and welcoming to me – this perfect stranger – especially at this most vulnerable time of their own lives,” she relates.
While driven by other motives, many people share McGill’s desire to help others during their final months, weeks and days of life.
Joseph Marsano, a recent UCD graduate, is also a new Yolo Hospice patient care volunteer.
“I want to understand the emotional aspects of death,” Marsano says, “and to integrate what I’m learning here into my future work.”
Marsano plans to attend medical school in the fall of 2008.
“I have to be prepared to deal with death,” he says. “The goal is to help patients as best you can, but medicine isn’t always about saving everyone.”
Darlene Allwright, a Yolo Hospice nurse, agrees.
“We’re such caregivers, we want to fix everyone,” she says. “But often the best medicine doesn’t come from a bottle or syringe – it comes from the heart.”
The essence of hospice volunteering is simply a willingness to be present.
“You don’t need special skills,” says Valeska Wise, volunteer services manager for Yolo Hospice, “just a desire to be of service and an openness to be a companion to someone who is dying.” Patient care volunteers must be at least 18 years old and complete a 24-hour volunteer training program.
Families are often totally consumed with caring for their dying loved one while still trying to manage their own lives. There are many issues and emotions in play. Everyone needs some normal time.
“We can be the neutral person who can come in and be ordinary,” McGill says.
Sometimes volunteers read aloud, visit, play cards or watch TV with the patient. Other times they may go for a drive or a walk or just sit quietly together.
“It’s about what the patient needs or wants,” Wise says.
At times the family needs help. The volunteer may runs errands for the family – or simply sit and visit.
“Through this experience I want to learn about myself as well as others,” Marsano says.
And he is already. Joseph’s patient is nearly four times older than he.
“This is someone who has come to terms with facing death,” he says. “I can’t understand that yet because I’m so young. Am I even going to live that long?
“I’m learning in a very practical sense from someone in a phase of life that is foreign to me.”
Yolo Hospice is hosting a training in Davis for those wishing to become hospice volunteers. The 24-hour training is Fridays and Saturdays, June 29 and 30 and July 6 and 7, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. The cost is $35 and preregistration is required.
To download a registration form, go to www.yolohospice.org and click on Volunteers. For more training information, or to learn about other volunteer opportunities with Yolo Hospice, call Valeska Wise, volunteer services manager, 758-5566 or email vwise@yolohospice.org. |
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Quotes
"Coping with terminal illness is all consuming for patient and family. As a hospice nurse, I feel it is most important to advocate, respect and use the knowledge we have to make the end of life the most comfortable it can be while always keeping in mind the unique needs of each patient." ~Jody Norton, RN |
