As most of you know, I have had personal experience with hospice as a daughter when my mom was put on in home hospice in her final days. What some of you may not know, is that I started working with hospice at the VA about 5 months ago. I was working in my full time position in the home health department and asked my supervisor if there were any other openings in the hospital that I could help cover while we were short staffed because I wanted to get more clinical experience with our veterans. When she told me that there was an opening for an inpatient hospice social worker, I immediately was scared to death but felt like God was nudging me to take the position. To make a long story short, I have been covering half of the 22-bed inpatient hospice unit at the VA hospital in Temple in addition to my full time position. I can say without a doubt, I have fallen in love with hospice. I love my veterans, my families, and the entire hospice team.
The interesting thing is that most of my coworkers on the hospice unit only know me as the "hospice social worker Allison" and do not know that I once sat on the other side as a daughter who had a mom who was dying. My first day on the unit I lost a veteran and immediately started wondering if I truly could handle what I had just signed up to do... God continued to assure me that hospice is where He wanted me at this time.
Today was a wake up call for me as a believer and as a social worker. I was told 15 minutes before I got off work that one of my veterans just passed away. I was told this by a nurse in passing and this man was very young and was raising several young children. I can't go into any details about this due to patient confidentiality, but this afternoon hit very close to home. The family did not request to see me so I decided to head home... already thinking about what I needed to get at the store to make the dessert I had planned for tonight. As I was driving home I got to spend a few minutes chatting with a friend and had a sweet conversation about a blessing that they are about to experience as they bring their baby girl into the world. After I got off the phone, I couldn't get my hospice family out of my mind and began remembering back to the days before my mom died... She was my world. I did have a relationship with the Lord and He was above all, my rock, but my mama was my world here on Earth. She was everything to me. When she went to be with the Lord, my world shook. It even shattered for a while. As I was driving I realized that even though I was trying to "leave work at work," this family's world just shattered. I have been able to grieve over my mama's death over the past 3 years and God has been gracious to show me his love over and over again, He has even shown me glory that has come from the testimony of her life.
I will never feel the same with my veterans as I did with my mom, and I shouldn't. She was my mama. Today made me realize that God calls us to and entrusts us with very important jobs. Each of my hospice families see their loved one as "their world" and expect that they will receive the best love and care possible. As much as I can't take my work home with me, I never want to lose sight of what it felt like to be a daughter. A daughter who was terrified of what life would be like without her mom at 21 years old. I never want to be a social worker who forgets what it felt like to be told "There are no other treatments, we would like to keep her comfortable and pain free."
I remember those 10 days on hospice and feeling as if my world was crumbing. I thank God for this time I've been given to walk along side families who are facing the reality of losing what many of them consider their world.
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