{"id":1148,"date":"2019-04-14T12:50:02","date_gmt":"2019-04-14T16:50:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.athenainstitute.com\/ahp\/?p=1148"},"modified":"2019-05-07T14:13:04","modified_gmt":"2019-05-07T18:13:04","slug":"hospice-volunteer-reflection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.athenainstitute.com\/ahp\/hospice-volunteer-reflection\/","title":{"rendered":"Hospice Volunteer Reflection"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was really nervous when I walked into the dementia unit for the very first time. Even though we had an extensive orientation, I still didn\u2019t know what to expect. But my nervousness disappeared the moment I saw my patient Anne<\/em> in the dining room. The first word that come to my mind to describe her was “peaceful.” While I expected to meet someone numb or completely unaware of their surroundings, Anne<\/em> was neither. She was calm, peaceful, and had the most gorgeous smile.<\/p>\n

Once Anne<\/em> believed that we were visiting China, and she told me about her Chinese neighbor. We also had a conversation on the importance of learning a foreign language. Another time, I showed Anne<\/em>\u00a0a picture book of dogs and cats, and somehow she thought I was there selling pets to her. She told me about her dogs and cats and how much work she had to do to take care of them. Anne<\/em> also talked about her late husband all the time. She told me her husband was on a trip, but he would be back home soon. In these visits, Anne<\/em> might act forgetful, confused, and sometimes a little stubborn, but she was still Anne<\/em>. Having dementia made her lost some memories, but it certainly didn\u2019t make her lost herself. During these visits, I also realized that the key to communicate with people in hospice is to follow their lead, instead of trying to lead them into a planned topic.<\/p>\n

Anne’s<\/em> energy started waning down after Thanksgiving. It was a gradual process that happened fast. Just like what Atul Gawande described in “Being Mortal,” the human body is like a machine, and when all the backup system failed, the machine will fall apart quickly. Anne<\/em> started to feel drowsiness during lunch, then she stopped eating her lunch, and eventually in my last visit, she could not leave her bed. During my last visit with Anne<\/em>, she was lying in bed, feeling uncomfortable, and holding an ice bag on her hand to alleviate the pain. \u201cI feel like something bad is going to happen,\u201d Anne<\/em> told me. She was anxious, more confused than ever, and feeling very tired. Anne<\/em> passed away during winter break.<\/p>\n

I am very honored to have observed Anne’s<\/em> final journey.\u00a0Although it was heartbreaking to see how her health decreased in my last few visits, I also became more comfortable facing the topic of mortality. Anne’s<\/em> journey was not tragic or sad as I first speculated before I met her, but rather calm, peaceful, and moving. This journey also made me realized that being a doctor and helping people with their health problems does not mean only treating their diseases. The essence should be care for the people. The more I visited my \u201cpatients,\u201d the less I want to call them \u201cpatient.\u201d I don\u2019t believe we should medicalize the dying process, since it is not about any disease.<\/p>\n

Just before I left in my last visit with Anne<\/em>, I read her the book that\u2019s next to her bed. It was a biography of a priest. She was so calm while I read. It almost seemed like the pain was gone, and I was just reading her a bedtime story. When I finished the preface, Anne<\/em> said, \u201cThis is nice,\u201d and then fell asleep. This is the last conversation I had with Anne<\/em>, and it is the most memorable moment of my hospice volunteer experience.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was really nervous when I walked into the dementia unit for the very first time. Even though we had an extensive orientation, I still didn\u2019t know what to expect. But my nervousness disappeared the moment I saw my patient Anne in the dining room. The first word that come to my mind to describe … Continue reading “Hospice Volunteer Reflection”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"school":[14],"program_year":[30],"class_list":["post-1148","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hospice","school-haverford","program_year-30"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.athenainstitute.com\/ahp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1148","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.athenainstitute.com\/ahp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.athenainstitute.com\/ahp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.athenainstitute.com\/ahp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.athenainstitute.com\/ahp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1148"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.athenainstitute.com\/ahp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1148\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1265,"href":"https:\/\/www.athenainstitute.com\/ahp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1148\/revisions\/1265"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.athenainstitute.com\/ahp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.athenainstitute.com\/ahp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.athenainstitute.com\/ahp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1148"},{"taxonomy":"school","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.athenainstitute.com\/ahp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/school?post=1148"},{"taxonomy":"program_year","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.athenainstitute.com\/ahp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/program_year?post=1148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}