Read incredible stories shared by hospice and palliative care patients, their families, hospice care professionals, and hospice volunteers. Submit your own hospice and palliative care story below, and share your experience or that of a loved one’s incredible journey at the end of life.
It’s almost three o’clock in the morning. I am doing an infrequent night shift at a hospice residence in St. Paul. My nursing career has taken me down amazing paths in my thirty-four years as registered nurse: children’s rehab, pediatric neurology, newborn ICU, orthopedics, medical-surgical, elderly home care. These experiences, as well as my roles… [Read more]
Hospice Minnesota’s Public Awareness Award was established to recognize significant accomplishment in advancing the knowledge of hospice care. As such, it is traditionally a media award and given only for an exceptional public awareness accomplishment. Past Recipients include: Kay Harvey for articles in the Pioneer Press – 2000; NHPCO for the national PSA campaign –… [Read more]
After a 20-hour flight from Los Angeles, we arrived at the Hong Kong Airport at 5:30 am. That same day we flew to Beijing and were met by our travel guide. Although all twenty-two of the delegates had been on the same flight, we didn’t actually meet each other until we gathered around the guide,… [Read more]
Hospice Patients and Their Caregivers Benefit from the Extraordinary Power of Music. SMDC Foundation and St. Mary’s Foundation provide funds for full-time music therapist Music is such an integral part of our lives that many songs are capable of evoking strong memories whenever we hear them. Perhaps “String of Pearls,” “Love Me Tender,” “Here, There… [Read more]
Ruth has been a patient of the Methodist Hospital Hospice for over a year. When the hospice nurse asked her if she would like to have a hospice volunteer, Ruth wasn’t sure she wanted to have someone new in her life. Her son, who lives in St. Paul, visits regularly and is a great help… [Read more]
When Mary Nagel of Arlington, Minnesota was a patient of Immanuel St. Joseph’s/Mayo Health System Hospice, her daughter Monica decided she wanted to design stained glass angels as a way to increase awareness in the community about hospice and to raise money for the hospice program. Mary died in April 1999, and Monica introduced the… [Read more]
Grete Krause, a dog trainer and head of Puppy Love Caring Canines, recognized something special about Rosie, a three-year-old chocolate Lab that had been abandoned and probably abused by a previous owner. Just days after Grete found Rosie, Sharon Booth called to inquire about a dog for the Fridley Convalescent Home. It took only one… [Read more]
Gifts come in a variety of packages. Working with hospice patients and their families, we are privileged to be participants to the gifts of wonder and insight that happen at the close of life. I remember a particular Wednesday morning when we gathered in the hospice office before going down to our bi-weekly interdisciplinary team… [Read more]
[The following is an abridged version of the article that appeared in the January 1, 2004 issue of the Frazee Forum. The article and photograph are used with permission of the Frazee Forum and the Goranson family.] The late Evart Goranson, in his home, surrounded by his family, in the last days of his life…. [Read more]
Through the course of my fight with breast cancer I learned many things about myself and my place in the world. I believe I have a beautiful spirit that has been created for some purpose, that the people and situations I encounter also have beauty and purpose. The name of this piece is “Seeing the… [Read more]