Time is spinning down...

We met with a couple of workers from the local hospice team earlier this week. The choice to at least meet with them was made for us by a couple of our doctors who just assumed that we would want a referral to hospice. We have not been fond of doctors (or anyone else for that matter) making decisions about our care without consulting us and I think that is something that everyone in the medical system needs to work on. The patient is not just an inanimate object there for everyone to work on - the patient needs to be involved. Anyway...

We have been struggling with the fact that we love our current care team, especially our nurse and bath aide, and we will loose them if we go on hospice. The decision is made even more difficult in that our current care team has the skills and willingness to see us through to the end. The question really becomes does hospice have something to offer that justifies a change in team?

The hospice nurse that would be taking care of us is a nurse that took care of Rebekah 6 years ago when Rebekah was fighting cancer. She knows our family and she knows how strong of advocates we are. Not all providers are comfortable with that. And, like this nurse, most that have us as patients never forget us. In this case this nurse and we think the same way. Assuming we do switch she will be good. We received even more conformation about her when our current nurse told us today that he hired her when he worked for hospice and he is comfortable turning over Frances' care to her where he wouldn't be just anybody.

The key parts of hospice for us, besides the nurse, our the counselors. Our current team has a counselor but she has not really been involved that much. Not because she wasn't willing but more because she didn't push and we didn't ask. The hospice counselors on the other hand are more pushy and more focused on what we need right now; we like that. There are also separate counselors for the kids as for the adults.

We will only be with them a short time but switching is a decision that both Frances and I think is appropriate. It's just one of many decisions we have to make right now.