{"id":747,"date":"2018-08-08T17:04:49","date_gmt":"2018-08-08T17:04:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/matrixbricks.us\/suncrest\/?p=747"},"modified":"2024-09-24T03:25:57","modified_gmt":"2024-09-24T03:25:57","slug":"grandpas_hospice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/matrixbricks.us\/suncrest\/grandpas_hospice\/","title":{"rendered":"Grandpa’s Hospice"},"content":{"rendered":"[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]\n

Grandpa\u2019s Hospice<\/h1>\n[\/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space][vc_single_image image=”750″ img_size=”full”][vc_empty_space][vc_column_text]He was the funniest person I knew. He was rarely ever able to finish his own jokes because he would crack himself up just thinking about the punchline. He was able to spread joy and laughter to everyone he met. Our family always joked about Grandpa making new friends everywhere he went, because he was just that personable. Even though Alzheimer’s took away his memories, he was still able to keep his sense of humor about him until the very end. Unfortunately, Grandpa lost the battle to Alzheimer’s in October of 2015, but he was lucky enough to be on service with Suncrest Hospice for the last two months of his life.<\/span>[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row content_placement=”middle”][vc_column width=”2\/3″][vc_column_text]Looking back, I wish it wouldn\u2019t have taken so long.<\/span><\/p>\n

By this I mean, primarily, I wish the Alzheimer\u2019s wouldn\u2019t have taken so long. It slowly worked its havoc for over a decade. Grandpa withered away into a shell of who he used to be. The plump, jolly, spry gentleman ultimately morphed into a fragile, sallow, and confused, almost-juvenile man. He was still in there, we knew that. But I\u2019m almost certain that Grandpa wouldn\u2019t have wanted that life for himself. If we could have told him back at the turn of the century, \u201cOh yes, you\u2019ll be alive for another 15 years. But you won\u2019t remember most things. And you will have (seemingly) strange people changing your clothes and taking you to the bathroom. You\u2019ll eventually stop walking, because your sight will go and you\u2019ll fall down. A lot. Your skin will become tissue paper-thin, and you\u2019ll have an assortment of bandages covering your body through the end of time. Eventually, you won\u2019t even remember us\u2026\u201d He would have been mortified. He would\u2019ve said, \u201cJust take me out to the back right now and shoot me!\u201d But, had we also told him that he would still enjoy chocolate milkshakes, still love listening to barbershop music, and the last noise his granddaughter would hear from him was a laugh\u2026 would he still have wanted to end it? Who knows. There wasn\u2019t a real choice. Alzheimer\u2019s is good at what it does: take and take and take until there\u2019s nothing left, and not giving its victims a say in what is taken or when.<\/span>[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”1\/3″][vc_column_text]\n

“To my grandmother and mom, \u201chospice\u201d was a bad word.”<\/h3>\n[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Secondly, I wish it wouldn\u2019t have taken so long to for us to decide to get Grandpa onto Suncrest services. To my grandmother and mom, \u201chospice\u201d was a bad word. The only hospice they were familiar with was a dingy, old nursing facility where great-grandma went, and back then they just pumped her full of morphine until she was eventually gone. No way were they going to consider putting our beloved family man through that! Luckily, though, the times have changed. And even more lucky is that Suncrest has created a hospice program that has redefined what quality care really looks like. Once the Suncrest team members came to educate our family, it was like the clouds opened up and the bright, yellow sunshine could stream in. Could Suncrest take away the Alzheimer\u2019s and make Grandpa walk again, or remember everything he\u2019d already lost? Of course not. But could they take away the pain and soothe him, ensure he was clean and cared for, comfortable, and that he was still treated like a human being rather than just a patient or a disease? Absolutely. He died contentedly and he died with dignity. I just wish we could have gifted him with that comfort for longer than two months. Then again, maybe that\u2019s why it was only for two months. Maybe he was finally at ease enough to leave his weary vessel of a body and continue on his journey.<\/span>[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row content_placement=”middle”][vc_column width=”1\/2″][vc_column_text]\n

\u201cI just wish we could have gifted him with that comfort for longer than two months.\u201d<\/h3>\n[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”1\/2″][vc_column_text]Isn\u2019t it funny how life (and death) works, though?<\/span><\/p>\n

If Grandpa hadn\u2019t had Alzheimer\u2019s, then we wouldn\u2019t have been better informed about today\u2019s hospice care. I wouldn\u2019t have known about Suncrest, and therefore wouldn\u2019t have ended up becoming a team member just a year and a half after his death. I wouldn\u2019t have found that deep hole in my soul that can only be filled by being an elder care advocate. And I likely wouldn\u2019t be educating nearly everyone I meet about death & dying, or promoting that no one should have to die a lonely and undignified death, or believing that our society can and should normalize it into something that is just as special and sacred as birth.<\/span>[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]It\u2019s refreshing to be surrounded by like-minded people who all want to serve people, not just help patients. I know how hard it can be during the final chapter of a loved one\u2019s end of life. It\u2019s too easy to become confused, sad, scared, angry, and, not least of all, overwhelmed. But know that Suncrest has a team committed to supporting families just as much as the patients themselves. We want your loved one to have the highest quality of care, and hopefully within Suncrest\u2019s care, you too will be able to find some comfort of your own.<\/span>[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If Grandpa hadn\u2019t had Alzheimer\u2019s, then we wouldn\u2019t have been better informed about today\u2019s hospice care. I wouldn\u2019t have found that deep hole in my soul that can only be filled by being an elder care advocate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9412,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-747","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-blog"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/matrixbricks.us\/suncrest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/747","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/matrixbricks.us\/suncrest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/matrixbricks.us\/suncrest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/matrixbricks.us\/suncrest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/matrixbricks.us\/suncrest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=747"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/matrixbricks.us\/suncrest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/747\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":751,"href":"https:\/\/matrixbricks.us\/suncrest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/747\/revisions\/751"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/matrixbricks.us\/suncrest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9412"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/matrixbricks.us\/suncrest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/matrixbricks.us\/suncrest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/matrixbricks.us\/suncrest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}