Coping With Grief and Loss
Coping With Grief and Loss
Taken from New Beginnings, Carolina Hospice’s quarterly news letter, put together by our bereavement coordinator Penny.
Losing someone you love is very painful. After a significant loss, you may experience all kinds of difficult and surprising emotions, such as shock, anger, and guilt. Sometimes it may feel like sadness will never let up. While these feelings can be frightening and overwhelming, they are normal reactions to loss. Accepting them as part of the grieving process and allowing yourself to feel what you feel is necessary for healing.
There is no right or wrong way to grieve-but there are healthy ways to cope with pain. You can get through it! Grief that is expressed and experienced has potential for healing that eventually can strengthen and enrich life.
Coping with Grief and Loss tip 1: Get Support
The single most important factor in healing from loss is having the support of other people. Even if you aren’t comfortable talking about your feelings under normal circumstances, it’s important to express them when you are grieving. Sharing your loss makes the burden of grief easier to carry. Wherever the support comes from, accept it and do not grieve alone. Connecting to others will help you heal.
Coping with Grief and Loss tip 2: Take Care of yourself
When you are grieving, its more than important than ever to take care of yourself. The stress of a major loss can quickly deplete your energy and emotional reserves. Looking after your physical and emotional needs will help you get through this difficult time.
Carolina Hospice Care offers bereavement support groups to help support you through a difficult time. This group is available to anyone and we encourage you to become part of our family of support here at Carolina Hospice Care. Contact Penny Kinsey for further information at 843-849-5910 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 843-849-5910 end_of_the_skype_highlighting.
The Common Myths of Hospice
Myth #1 Hospice is only for those with cancer.
More than half of hospice patients nationwide have a diagnosis other than cancer. Carolina Hospice Care serves patients and families coping with cancer as well as many other chronic diseases like Alzheimer’s, dementia, heart disease, Parkinson’s, ALS, emphysema, COPD, HIV/AIDS, and also just general decline.
Myth #2 Hospice is a place.
Hospice is a philosophy of care and can take place in a patient’s home, a loved one’s home, assisted living facility, or nursing facility. Carolina Hospice Care will care for you or your loved one wherever the need exists which is usually the place you call home. In fact, 70 percent of hospice care is delivered where the patient lives.
Myth #3 Hospice is only for dying people or who have only 6 moths or less.
Though hospice care is for patients with non-curable illnesses, or patients who choose not to seek curative treatment, patients do not have to be activelydying to receive the services and benefits of hospice. Once a person becomes a patient of Carolina Hospice care, he or she will continue to receive services, as services are not stopped unless they are no longer necessary or the patient no longer desires hospice services. Additionally, Carolina Hospice Care offers family-centered care that places high priority on the needs of the patient’s families and loved ones. The support we provide is just as much for the family as it is for the patient, and this support continues after the patient’s death. Carolina Hospice Care also offers resources to the entire community through bereavement support groups and camps and caregiver support groups.
Myth #4 Hospice can only help when family members are available to provide care.
Many people who have terminal illnesses live alone or with family who are unable to provide care. Our team at Carolina Hospice Care makes every effort to obtain and coordinate available community resources to make home care possible for these patients. We can also help find an alternative location where the patient can safely receive the care they need.
Myth #5 Hospice services are expensive.
Hospice services are covered by Medicare, Medicaid, and many private insurance companies. The Medicare hospice benefit is for those over 65. These benefits typically cover all hospice services with little or no out-of-pocket expense. This means there are no financial burdens for the patient or family, in sharp contrast to the huge financial expenses that are often a part of end-of-life care without hospice. This benefit also includes most medical equipment and medications related to the patient’s diagnosis.
Myth #6 Hospice is only for people who accept they are dying.
Many people who face terminal illnesses struggle to come to terms with death, and the compassionate team of Carolina Hospice Care will be there to gently help them find acceptance at their own speed. At any time day or night we welcome questions from families who are unsure about their needs and available options. The Carolina Hospice staff is always available to discuss all options to help patients and family make care decisions.
Myth # 7 Hospice patients can not go to the hospital.
Most patients receiving hospice care do not wish to be hospitalized and that is the goal of care, however, at any time if the patient, family, or hospice staff believe that is in the patient’s best interest to receive inpatient care that is always an option.
Myth # 8 Hospice is not for people who need a high level of care.
Carolina Hospice Care is a Medicare and Medicaid certified hospice, which requires us to employ experienced medical and nursing personnel with skill in symptom management. We take it another step further and require all employees to go through an extensive hands-on training orientation. Also, staff education is ongoing throughout each year via seminars, presentation, and in-services to ensure we are always providing the very best care. Carolina Hospice Care offers state-of -the -art palliative care, using advanced technologies to prevent or alleviate distressful symptoms.
Myth # 9 Hospice patients require a “DNR” (Do Not Resuscitate) prior to admission
At Carolina Hospice Care we recognize these decisions may take time and acceptance, and, therefore, we will provide information, support, and counseling to help patients and families make decisions regarding these end-of-life issues. We acknowledge and respect the end-of-life choices made by our patients and their caregivers, and will continue to provide support and education until they are ready to make that decision.
Myth #10 Hospice takes away hope.
When death is in sight, there are two options: submit without hope or live as fully as possible until the end. The gift of Carolina Hospice is it’s capacity to help families and see how much can be shared at the end-of-life through personal and spiritual connections often left behind. It is no wonder so many families can look back uopn their hospice experience with appreciation, gratitude, and the knowledge that everything possible was done to ensure a peaceful death for their loved one.
Informational facts obtained from The American Hospice Foundation at http://www.american-hospice-e.org
What Does Hospice Have to Do With My Grief?
What a good question as many people and healthcare providers alike are unaware of the depth of support hospice can lend. Throughout the care of your loved, the members of the Carolina Hospice Care team is there to not only provide medical care, comfort and spiritual and emotional support to the patient but also to the family. Our dedication to caring for the family is just as important as caring for the patient, and the caring doesn’t end with the passing of your loved one. Our support continues long after that through individual counseling by certified counselors, bereavement support groups, our annual bereavement day camp. The following information was taken from Rev. Donna Marie Tetreault’s Care Note “How Hospice Supports Your Family Through Grief and Loss”:
- Hospice listens and lets you express your grief
Hospice team members provide ongoing support and listening as medical, spiritual, and emotional needs and tasks arise. Hospice focuses on the one who is dying as well as those they will leave behind. The plan of care identifies specific needs for education about the disease process unfolding, what to expect as death nears and occurs, and the bereavement support and guidance that is most helpful and appropriate. These plans of care are unique to the individual and the situation, and are carried out on a one-to-one basis or through family meetings. Hospice provides reassurance about the wide range of normal grief response, age-related support for children, and interventions for complicated grief, a situation when certain factors can prevent a person from moving through the time of bereavement in a healthy way.
- Hospice provides encouragement, guidance, education
These discussions, led in a compassionate and gentle way, address advance directives such as tube feedings, resuscitation, hospitalization, nursing home placement, and funeral planning. While these are tough topics to discuss, moving through them in ways that respect the dying person’s wishes, cultural expectations, and religious practices can help to ease some of the uncertainty and fears of the unknown. Hospice offers a holistic approach, recognizing the unique physical, emotional, and spiritual needs of the patient and their loved ones. In this way, the journey towards life’s end is lived out with dignity and respect. A life limiting illness profoundly touches all of those involved. Hospice is and anchor, a mooring of body, mind, spirit in the midst of the unsettled and restless waves of anxiety, concern, and the unknown.
- Hospice helps you work through relationship issues
One of the most common experiences of anticipatory grief-the grief felt by loved ones in anxious anticipation of the approaching death-is undeserved guilt. Often family members regret past times of anger or separation from the one who is dying, or blame themselves for not recognizing symptoms earlier or not pushing for more aggressive treatment or therapies. Hospice works through these natural concerns with you, allowing you to see both the good and the stressful in relationships, and to realize the limitations we all have in wanting and providing the best for those we love. Hospice encourages you to honor, affirm, and celebrate your best times and efforts.
- Hospice assists with planning and care issues
Other supports that hospice team members provide sre education and guidance related to t he tasks and expectations as death nears. While no one can predict just when and how death will occur, there are physical signs and symptoms that life is ebbing away. Two of the most distressing events for loved ones can be the loss of appetite, and the visions that dying persons sometimes have of those who have already passed on. Knowing what to expect can prepare and reassure those around the dying person that these are normal and natural changes. Maggie Callanan and Patricia Kelley, hospice nurse and authors, encourage loved ones to accept and validate their dying loved one, and in doing so bring comfort in the face of death’s approach. Each of the team members can teach loved ones how to offer comfort through care, touch, and conversation. Hearing is often the last of the senses to be lost, so loved ones are encouraged to say what they would like the person to hear.The hospice nurse working with the primary physician and medical director, provides medications for comfort that help relieve a patient’s physical and emotional distress. The social worker can help you determine the availability of appropriate community resources, veterans benefits, and other services. The chaplain is available to contact a family’s own pastoral minister, to offer blessings and prayers, to counsel and guide, and to officiate at a service if so desired. Hospice team members are available to accompany you through the funeral observances.
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Want to Save a Life?
Have you ever wanted to save a life, or at least make a difference in your community? Well, it is actually easier than you may think! You can join Carolina Hospice Care in donating blood to the American Red Cross. According to the Red Cross, 1 donation can save 3 lives!!! Also, they report that the summer months are when donations are the lowest so the need is higher. For a reason that I am not quite sure of, people are very hesitant to give blood. Is it the fear of the needle? Come on it’s not thatbad, and a small price to pay to save a life don’t ya think? I have discovered there are many myths that are connected to donating blood. One is that only certain blood types can donate, but ALL blood types are needed. Another excuse is that they “take too much blood and I need my blood”. Well obviously it is true that we need blood, but that is exactly why we should give it: to those whose need is great and often immediate. When you donate, only 1 pint is given, and the average adult has 10-12 pints. Our bodies are constantly making new blood, and ,therefore, our donated pint is replenished pretty quickly. Additionally, those who wanted to donate in the past may have been unable due to reasons that are no longer applicable. Of course, there are very real reasons people can not donate their blood, and you can check your eligibility at http://www.redcrossblood.org/. Every 3 seconds a person needs a blood transfusion, whether for an accident victim, cancer patient, or child with leukemia, and only by the generosity of people like you, who are willing to donate, are they helped. Carolina Hospice Care will be hosting a blood drive on Saturday, July 10th, from 9am-2pm, check out our Events page for further details. Bring the family as we will be providing lots of fun for the kids while you are donating (jump castle, face painting, games & prizes). So what are ya waiting for, lets save a life together!!!
Go to www.redcrossblood.org to register. Sponser code is Carolina Hospice