Where the Better Angels Work

from Health & Wellness Northern Michigan 2023

love of the land

How area hospice volunteers guide patients and loved ones through one of the most emotional, challenging and beautiful parts of life.

by PATTY LANOUE STEARNS

When my mother was in the last stages of ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s disease, hospice came to the rescue. Not just to usher our beloved mom into the great hereafter, but also to help her and our family members accept the weighty inevitability of her death.

Mom was of the generation that only whispered about dying. But after she read the breakthrough 1969 book, “On Death and Dying” by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, a co-founder of the hospice movement who outlined the five stages of grief before and after death, my mother’s thoughts began to evolve.

Hospice care services include doctors, nurses, social workers, spiritual counselors, home health aides, bereavement counselors and trained volunteers. The idea is to offer comfort, dignity and quality of life to patients whose diseases don’t respond to curative treatment.

My family witnessed firsthand the selflessness, caring and keen wisdom of Darlene, our hospice worker. She came to my parents’ home several times a week and made us all feel comfortable at the saddest time of our lives. Each time she visited, my mom felt more and more at ease. Just before Mom died, Darlene let us know that it was time for my large family to assemble. My brother played a Simon and Garfunkel tune on his guitar as she took her last breath.

A Love Story

Anyone who knows Denny and Monterey Wheeler knows the great story of how they met. They were both divorced, and even though they both went to the same high school, they didn’t know each other until Monterey’s best friend introduced the two at a party in Onekama. Not long after, on their first date, she says, “We knew.”

Their love story began in May 2000, and the couple married soon after, enjoying more than two decades of love, laughter and a mutual adoration of good food and rock ’n’ roll. In 2022, Denny was diagnosed with ALS. As his condition began to deteriorate, Monterey contacted a social worker at their insurance provider, Priority Health, to get the ball rolling. Two days later, they began receiving hospice care through Munson Hospital Cadillac at their Manistee home.

“It was a wise decision. They have been wonderful, with a team much like the ALS Clinic in Grand Rapids, except they come to us,” says Monterey. “No more trips to GR. And they do everything we need. Someone from their team comes nearly every day.”

Hospice has provided all of the equipment Denny needs— an online app for voice recognition with large print, a ventilator and suction machine and, the biggest hit so far, the visit from a retired pastor, who brought his guitar and played Bob Seger and Neil Diamond. “Denny just beamed,” Monterey says, noting that Christmas was more meaningful in 2022 because of “the gift of having Denny, and the time we’ve been given to continue writing our love story.” She wants people to know that, “Hospice doesn’t mean death is imminent. We just go one day at a time, and try to do something different every day.”

A LONG-TIME VOLUNTEER

Traverse City resident Jan Chapman witnessed her mom and, more recently, her boyfriend, go through hospice. And over two decades, she’s experienced many passings as a volunteer. But before that, at only 34 years old, she watched her husband die without hospice. It was a lesson.

“After that, I felt I had to help people who were dying,” Chapman says. “People can die peacefully and it’s not scary. It’s the most natural thing, and it can give you peace to be with a loved one and take care of that person. It’s beautiful.”

Chapman lauds clinical social worker Mary Raymer for starting the hospice program in Traverse City with the intent to help people live their last days of life as fully as possible. Chapman shares, “People think once you call hospice, it’s the end—and what is wrong with that? Hospice allows you to die at home, helps you with living in the here and now, and teaches you so much—to be happy every day you wake up.”

She says hospice offers the most tranquil way to die, for patients and families alike. “It can be peaceful if you know how to navigate the storm,” she says. “None of us like that our loved one is dying, so we say, ‘How can we make it as peaceful as possible.’”

She recalls volunteer work with an especially crabby hospice patient who was in a lot of pain. “I told him, ‘You can be as crabby as you want, but if you will let me, I will make you as comfortable as possible. I’m here because I love you and want to help you.’

“About an hour later, he told me, ‘I’ve never felt this comfortable in my entire life.’ He died in the middle of the night. Everybody’s death can be a lesson to somebody that this can be beautiful,” Chapman adds. “Nobody teaches us how to ask for help. We don’t know what to say. That’s where hospice can help.”

Another Lesson

Like Chapman, Northport writer and village trustee Susan Ager went through elaborate training as a hospice volunteer. She remembers her patients well.

“One client was a woman from Slovakia,” Ager says. “I saw her for a year. We would sit side by side and I would hold her hand and watch TV.”

What she learned was that families need respite from their sorrow as their loved ones move through the process of dying, and hospice volunteers provide that help, such as holding hands, massaging them, taking patients to the bathroom and doing bereavement calls after the patient has died.

“All of my experiences have been with families who signed up early—something that truly helps patients understand what is happening and what will happen next. Hospice is there to solve problems.”

Ager’s mother called hospice and made her own arrangements, to which the facility told Ager: “We wish we got more people like your mom.”

If you or someone you know suffers from dizziness, inbalance, or chronic pain, keep in mind that intervention is key. There are steps you can take to improve your balance, decrease chances of falling, and manage your pain.

If you or someone you know sufferes from dizziness, imbalance, or chronic pain, keep in mind that intervention is key. There are steps you can take to improve your balance, decrease chances of falling, and manage your pain.