From Hospital to Hospice: One Nurse’S Journey Towards Grace at the Bedside

By Susie Vincent BSN RN CHPN

If you or a loved one is considering entering hospice care, please know that you are not alone. If you have cared for a loved one through their dying process, many of these stories will ring familiar. Contained within these pages is a collection of stories and experiences for terminally ill patients and their families, prayerfully written in hopes that they will provide comfort, strength, and blessing to you.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Nov 9, 2015
• ISBN: 9781512717082

Susie Vincent BSN RN CHPN

I have been a hospice nurse for over twenty years. Hospice nursing is a unique opportunity to come alongside patients and their families as they face a terminal illness. It is filled with a variety of challenges and rewards. It is important that the nurse and hospice team fulfill their duties with skill, sensitivity, and professionalism in order to make this journey easier to navigate. Those who have been successful have viewed their work as more of a calling than just another job for a nurse. I have known a lot of nurses over the many years that have specialized in hospice that thought it would be easy nursing since they figured, “After all, the patients are dying.” Nothing could be further from the truth since our patients are in multi-system failure. It requires a lot of skilled assessments, interventions, and heading up the multi-system interdisciplinary team to manage these patients’ systems to keep them comfortable. It also requires dealing with the families and friends that are caring for these patients. I remember meeting Susie Vincent when she came in for an interview. It was for an RN case manager position at the hospice I was working for at the time. I wondered if she would be joining us. I thought about what she might be asked in the interview. Hospice nursing is about the story of the patient’s journey, but the nurse also has his or her own story as part of their history. I knew Susie would be asked to tell her story about what had drawn her to working with patients that are facing a life-threatening illness. Susie was hired and has shown exemplary compassion and skill in caring for clients. She feels it is a call from God and that gives her strength to carry out her responsibilities. I am honored to endorse Susie Vincent and her book. I found it hard to put down once I started reading it. She has captured the heart of nursing and shares some important practical insights that will help both nurses and patients to experience grace at the bedside as they prepare for their final journey. —Debbie Summers BSN, RN

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Copyright © 2014, 2015 Susan B. Vincent.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

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ISBN: 978-1-5127-1712-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5127-1708-2 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015917306

WestBow Press rev. date: 12/31/2015

Contents

Foreword

Preface

Acknowledgment

Introduction

1 Always and Never

2 Grace for Such a Time as This

3 Hesitancy to Leave

4 The Diagnosis

5 Christmas Cookies

6 911 – 9:11

7 Guardian Angel

8 Are you going with me?

9 Tiny Teacups

10 Do Not Rush into My Presence

11 Run, Ida, Run!

12 A Little Dignity Please

13 Any Other Way?

14 On Guard

15 The Hardest Conversation

Afterword and Onward

Dedication

This book is dedicated first and foremost to my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Without Him I would not be here to tell these stories, nor would I have been prepared for and continually blessed by this ministry of His.

To my husband Rob and children Katie and Ryan: Thank you for listening to me talk about the amazing moments that happen during a normal day of work for me. Thank you for your prayers, your support, and your encouragement not only as I entered the nursing profession but as I entered this holy ground of hospice work. I began my journey from hospital to hospice in early 2011 with a calling. Patients and families also begin their hospice journey with a calling, albeit of a different sort.

To my incredible patients, their families, colleagues, and the new friends God has brought alongside me on this journey: Thank you for affirming my mission when I told you I was called into nursing, then into hospice. This is a calling, and you understood. Fulfilling this calling is the only way hospice workers can truly survive the rough days, refill our spiritual reserves, and thrive in situations where the toughest people run out of a room. Only others that do what we do can truly understand.

If you have had the honor and privilege of caring for a loved one in hospice care, I pray that this book will give you strength and comfort. Thank you for allowing your hospice team to stand with you for a brief moment and may you use that experience to help others in their time of need.

Foreword

I have been a hospice nurse for over twenty years. Hospice nursing is a unique opportunity to come alongside patients and their families as they face a terminal illness. It is filled with a variety of challenges and rewards. It is important that the nurse and hospice team fulfill their duties with skill, sensitivity, and professionalism in order to make this journey easier to navigate. Those who have been successful have viewed their work as more of a calling than just another job for a nurse.

I have known a lot of nurses over the many years that have specialized in hospice that thought it would be easy nursing since they figured, After all, the patients are dying. Nothing could be further from the truth since our patients are in multi-system failure. It requires a lot of skilled assessments, interventions, and heading up the multi-system interdisciplinary team to manage these patients’ systems to keep them comfortable. It also requires dealing with the families and friends that are caring for these patients.

I remember meeting Susie Vincent when she came in for an interview. It was for an RN case