Its Halloween weekend, a time where people seek scary thrills.\u00a0 The streets and bars will be filled with kids and adults in costumes varying from cute animals and Disney princesses to zombies, witches, ghosts and devils. On Halloween, scary is fun.\u00a0 But the truly\u00a0frightening things in life are\u00a0those we don\u2019t understand or can\u2019t control.\u00a0 Death and dying are at the top of the list.\u00a0 Because of its close association with death and dying, hospice can seem scary too. Those that understand what hospice is know there is nothing to fear and much to embrace.<\/p>\n
The horror stories of hospice being\u00a0a \u201csilent killer\u201d simply are not true\u2014at least not where I work. For two years now I have worked in a hospice facility with an amazing team of dedicated skilled professionals.\u00a0 This year alone that team has helped 500 families through their end-of-life journeys with loved ones.\u00a0 Each patient has received compassionate and personalized care.\u00a0 They are asked about their preferences for everything from activities and pain and symptom management, to visitors and food. They are asked about their goals for their remaining time and the hospice team works diligently to help achieve those goals. They are offered visits from cuddly therapy pets, spa treatments, fresh flowers, and home cooked meals made to order.<\/p>\n
Our hospice team is bringing comfort to the ill and their families.\u00a0 These professionals are offering relief, support, encouragement, respect and dignity to people at a vulnerable time in their lives.\u00a0 There are tears at times, but there are also many smiles, hugs, and much laughter.\u00a0 There is a special joy that comes from simply focusing on being with those you love.\u00a0 Some people experience this joy for the first time through hospice.\u00a0 I know this because they tell me their stories and time and time again they say hospice has been \u201cthe most beautiful experience\u201d of their lives.<\/p>\n
Hospice is about honoring choices and maximizing quality of life.\u00a0 It\u2019s beautiful; not scary.<\/p>\n
Angelia Neumann is the director of development and communication at Sharon S. Richardson Community Hospice in Sheboygan Falls, WI.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Its Halloween weekend, a time where people seek scary thrills.\u00a0 The streets and bars will be filled with kids and adults in costumes varying from cute animals and Disney princesses […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":852,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-851","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-education"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/devsiteomg.com\/ssrc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/851","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/devsiteomg.com\/ssrc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/devsiteomg.com\/ssrc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devsiteomg.com\/ssrc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devsiteomg.com\/ssrc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=851"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/devsiteomg.com\/ssrc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/851\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devsiteomg.com\/ssrc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/852"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/devsiteomg.com\/ssrc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=851"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devsiteomg.com\/ssrc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=851"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devsiteomg.com\/ssrc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=851"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}