HEALTH & WELLNESS
‘TIL DEATH DO US PART Hospice: knocking out the taboo By: MERARI GUZMAN
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With 25 years of providing service in Corpus Christi and expansions throughout the years to the Rio Grande Valley, Beeville and San Antonio, Legacy Home Health Agency offers home health care, hospice, private duty and personal attendant services. We are your South Texas Legacy of Caring agency! For more information, visit www.legacyhhc.com, call 1-800-874-5112 or follow us on Facebook (@legacyhomehealth).
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ging, end-of-life and funerals tend to be taboo subjects in this country. The uncomfortable reality is that while we can avoid talking about it, death is something we all must face. When we speak the same language and understand the benefits, we can make more thorough and informed decisions about what we want. So let’s talk openly about the elephant in the room. First things first: Exploring hospice care isn’t “giving up.” It’s choosing a fuller life. Hospice care provides physical, spiritual and emotional support to those who are facing life-ending illnesses and to their family and caregivers. Maintaining a patient’s dignity and quality of life in the remaining days of life is the goal. Our unwillingness to talk about death risks leaving us vulnerable and underprepared. When you reach this inevitable chapter of life, where and with whom would you like to be? Most people would reply, “At home, surrounded by family,” which, statistically, is easier said than done. Hospice provides the opportunity to settle finances, mend important relationships and let a patient’s final wishes be fully realized. The stigma surrounding hospice is that once patients go into hospice care, it means patients or their families are giving up. The word, “terminal,” while perhaps necessary within the medical community, creates a harsh tone and emotions of hopelessness that there is nothing more left to do. Patients and hospice staff, however, prove every day that the stigma surrounding hospice is far from true. According to Howard Brody, Ph.D., former director of the Institute for Medical Humanities, “Hope means different things to different people, and different things to the same person as he/she moves through stages of illness.” Hope can be seen in a pain-free day, feeling valued and having a sense of security, all of which are offered in a well-run hospice program. It is heartbreaking when family members come to the realization that their loved ones could have embraced com-
