Hospice care focuses on quality of life and makes comfort a priority. It emphasizes a patient's dignity and right to personal choice at the end of life.
Hospice care neither hastens nor postpones death. It affirms life and regards dying as a normal process.
CREATING A CIRCLE OF CARE Most of the people we serve want to stay at home when they are sick or dying. The people who love them want to make that happen. We have designed our services to help make that work. As an independent nonprofit hospice we can put our patients' needs and wishes first. In times of illness and transition, loving care is a gift. Creating a circle of care with family and friends provides support for both the patient and the caregivers. By learning a few basic skills, and with support from us, families and friends can become the best of caregivers. We support the circle of care with organization, information, training, and counsel. We honor the spiritual and emotional aspects of care as well as the physical. Trained volunteers can also supplement the circle of care. We work closely with the patient's physician for pain and symptom management. If hospitalization is necessary, we can help with the patient's and family's needs there too.
WHAT IS UNUSUAL ABOUT HOSPICE SERVICES IN THIS COMMUNITY? We don't have home healthcare services or Medicare hospice services in our community because these government funded agencies have not been able to survive here financially. We have had to find our own way of providing services in this remote rural area. Because Heart of the Redwoods Community Hospice is not funded by government, Medicare regulations don't restrict our services or service area. Unlike government funded hospices, which require a six month prognosis, we can provide early services in addition to end-of-life care. We can serve patients who want to pursue curative treatment as well as those who want only comfort care. We can also help support the chronically ill and the frail elderly.
HELPING PEOPLE THROUGH GRIEF AND LOSS The gift of loving care continues long past a death. Hospice offers ongoing support to families and friends for as long as it feels right. We reach out into the community with bereavement groups for adults and a special group for people who have lost someone to suicide. We are always available to respond to traumatic losses in the community with grief counseling and support. Anyone who has experienced a loss can call or stop by the office. Grief counseling and support groups are open to everyone.
We are funded entirely by local donations and events.
Mother Lode, a beautiful new book of poetry by Mary Lou Scavarda is available at the hospice office. The poems were written during the last few weeks of her mother Lorraine's life.
Here are a few of the poems:
your neck and shoulders to soften
the gripping tension of constricted muscles.
I quench your skin's thirst with fragrant oil.
My hands mingle with pain
in the small of your back.
Contemplating the graceful slope
from shoulder to waistline,
I see, for just a moment,
your young woman's figure.
I am struck by the freshness
of this beauty still present,
though often hidden, in your wasting torso,
in your now slender arms and legs,
in the gnarled joints of your aging hands and feet.
tonight, comforted by the warmth
of his presence in the wool,
With him so close by, maybe
you will reach out for his hand
and walk with him, unafraid
as he woos you into the Light.
as a loud rattle when you exhale, Mom.
I hear and see utter concentration in your effort.
They told me I would know you were close to death
when your breath changed. I'm familiar with this sound.
I heard it for hours when Lou was dying. Unexpectedly.
I'm afraid now. I don't want to be here alone.
Jani and Paula come immediately when I call them.
A little later Mary, Jen, Ginny and Kathy arrive.
Seven of us hold this space for you Mom. Were partaking
in the unspeakable privilege of intimate and holy waiting.
You're slipping beyond us into a realm we can only imagine.
Is dying only a portal.
that her struggle to die is finished.
And it isn't really sorrow either.
The walls and wood floors echo
as I move about in the home
we moved into together.
Everything seems
suddenly empty and unfamiliar.
The voice of her absence
speaks louder than anything
I've ever known.