Hindsight is 2020

by the Auburn Crest Hospice Team

If “hindsight is 2020” then we’d like to share a few things Auburn Crest Hospice has observed and learned by looking back through the prism of the 6 senses.

Sound

Two talented musicians from the 1950’s -1970’s, Paul Nordoff and Clive Robbins, developed the music therapy approach as a means to engage vulnerable and isolated individuals through music. They recognized that all people regardless of pathology, illness, disability, trauma, or social isolation have the potential to make music. Participants experienced great satisfaction in the subsequent social interaction.

In response to the pandemic, group dynamics and the social benefits which individuals once realized from group musical experiences were not permitted. The Auburn Crest Hospice team has always been committed to enhancing the patient experience with music, if they so desire. As 2020 unfolded, group music experiences went virtual, and then virtually silent for those who could barely carry a tune in a bucket, unless others also brought their bucket. The vast majority of the public, and especially seniors, who would never sing solo (unless in the shower) would join in a group sing giving them a sense of familiarity and participatory appreciation of the activity. During the pandemic, local musicians braved North Idaho winter cold to provide hospice patients with music outside bedroom windows, in hallways, on patios, in living rooms, and at memorial gatherings from bagpipes to hand pans (the steel drum), guitar, cello, vocals, viola and violins. And now, more than ever, there is a return to social group musical experiences being created and shared once again!

TASTE and SMELL

So much more revolves around a meal than just the savored tastes and smells. When restaurant doors closed in 2020, shared meal experiences suffered. And, as TIME magazine noted in their November 8, 2014 article, “How Sharing Food Makes You a Better Person,” cultural rhythms were disrupted such as portioning food “fairly,” prioritizing of who goes first, and sacrificing for other’s desires. It was determined that a shared meal nurtures so Auburn Crest team members jumped into the gap and delivered fried chicken dinners with “all the fixins,” ice cream and gelato, soups and salad, burgers and fries, pizza and more pizza. Caregivers, residents, patients, and family members reminisced as small groupings shared those aromas and the ensuing stories were savored.

Touch

The research demonstrating the need for human touch is vast. From a developmental standpoint, infants literally cannot survive without human touch. Skin-to-skin contact in even the first hour of birth has been shown to help regulate a newborn’s temperature, heart rate, breathing, and decreases crying. Research has uncovered an astonishing number of poor health outcomes that result when we are deprived of touch. The correlation between touch and anxiety, depression and stress is large and inversely related. It has been found that touch calms our nervous center, slows down our heartbeat, lowers blood pressure and cortisol (our stress hormone). Studies using PET scans have found that the brain quiets in response to stress when a person’s hand is held. The effect is greatest when the hand being held is that of a loved one. The team at Auburn Crest Hospice donned the appropriate apparel and served hundreds over the last 3 years making sure hands were held, and hearts were touched. Much wound care was skillfully tended for both body and spirit.

Sight

“The eyes see but the heart perceives,” is certainly something that hospice patients can attest to. Though the physical body begins to fail, the inner person still is wanting to experience life. Auburn Crest remains committed to treating the individual and their families with honor, respect, and dignity. Through the pandemic, social worker Dave diligently negotiated with the US Naval personnel department in Honolulu Hawaii so that a patient’s son could be with his father in his closing days. As Dave greeted the son at the door of the nursing facility, he made sure this once in a lifetime moment between a father and his son could take place in person and not be separated by glass.

On other occasions, JJ, Todd, and Ronda enjoyed a live strings performance in a patient’s home living room with family, food and festivities; Sarah Jane co-coordinated a flight for Bruce over Lake Coeur d’Alene; Anne caught several fish on Hayden Lake; and young Aiden was thrilled at an interactive Star Wars Theatrical Extravaganza, created by the Auburn Crest team; and Betty celebrated her 100th birthday! Chaplains Dave, Judy, and Paul persisted with their patients, guiding them along the spiritual paths which would soon be made more visible as their human eyesight was fading.

THE 6th SENSE

What is that 6th Sense? Perhaps the idea of “Non-Sense” comes to mind. One of our favorite Reader’s Digest sections is called “Laughter is the Best Medicine.” Although Auburn Crest Hospice serves in the field of medicine, we have observed that through 2020, those who have kept their sense of humor have been the ones others want to be around.

Laughter lasts! It takes the expected and it brings the unexpected situation or thought into that moment. Laughter causes one to think, twice. Perhaps the theme of “Hindsight is 2020” reminds us that we should think twice about what we have all been going through. Truth has been tested; relationships have been strained; and if you are reading this then you are one who has survived one of the worst periods of suffering in modern times and we all have experienced it together. We could all use a dose of thinking twice about how our senses were impacted by this great test on the human spirit.

At the turn of the last century Albert Einstein said, “The human spirit must prevail over technology.” How’d we do? Later C.S. Lewis, a prolific thinker and writer and survivor of the WWII traumas said, “We must not abandon the absolute truth, not because we are making it, but because it is making us.” In this new century technology and truth are being tested and we should let all of our senses weigh in; perhaps all 6 of them.

Perhaps then we might encounter the unexpected, and perhaps take the advice of another thinking historian, “We should clearly understand that only the voluntary and conscientious acceptance by a people of its guilt can ensure the healing of a nation.”— Alexander Solzhenitsyn.

We, at Auburn Crest Hospice, have no doubt that lives are still being SEEN, songs and stories are being HEARD, moments are being SAVORED, hearts are being EMBRACED, and the unexpected still happens! Here’s to looking ahead .....