We’d been been putting my Father’s monthly Social Security check directly into our checking account for household expenses for the 15 years he was living with us, a very modest amount but enough to make it possible for me to stay home, care for him and also homeschool the boys.
When the Dr. at the regional medical center said that Father had an est. six months to live, he was signed into the med-center Home Hospice program, which meant he could come back from the hospital and do his final chapter surrounded by family.
The Hospice program (paid for by Medicare) supplied CNA’s who came fo 1/2 hour every morning to give him his sponge-bath, tooth-brushing (well, he as toothless: they call it Oral Cavity Care), shave, shampoo, get him dressed, provide the meds he needed, morphine, oxygen, nebulizer.
He ended up being 27 months in this “dying” process, which turns out to be just like living, after all. He enjoyed a laugh, a good word, a prayer, the Sacraments of the Church, a joke, a hug, an ice cream, almost to the very end.
Much to be thankful for here.
Thanks for the information. We’ll do what my parents want, of course, but it’s encouraging to see one way it can work out.