Dying the Good Death: A Hospice Experience from a Spiritual-Medical Perspective

By Donnica L. Brown Pierre RN

Eternally, from struggles to serenity, from a jaded life to joy and jubilation in heaven, I pray that this book will invoke the tough conversations regarding being prepared financially for final arrangements and discussing end-of-life wishes. Both living wills and materialistic wills are important. Planning certainly helps the survivors cope better, and this book will help you to see the importance of preparation. I sincerely hope that my work will become a cornerstone for learning across this nation. This book was not easy to compile because it evoked many repressed memories that I thought was better to forget, but God said different. God said to share my knowledge with all who has an ear and will hear. I pray that the case studies will be demonstrative that not every journey is similar but very unique.

In my experience, no two people have ever died alike. This book is spiritually based in that I reference biblical Scriptures because this is how I have managed my hospice goals and journey. God has divinely provided me with the knowledge to survive twenty-one years of hospice. He has also provided me the courage and wisdom to author this book! If I can increase the wisdom, knowledge, and understanding of different cultures, races, and human beings, then I truly believe that God will be pleased with my obedience to fulfill his desires for this particular purpose of my life.

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• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Oct 6, 2022
• ISBN: 9781685171209

Book preview

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Dying the Good Death

A Hospice Experience from a Spiritual-Medical Perspective

Donnica L. Brown Pierre, RN

ISBN 978-1-68517-119-3 (paperback)

ISBN 978-1-68517-120-9 (digital)

Copyright © 2022 by Donnica L. Brown Pierre, RN

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing

832 Park Avenue

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Preface

Dying the Good Death

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Case Study 1

Case Study 2

Case Study 3

Case Study 4

Case Study 5

Case Study 6

Case Study 7

Case Study 8

Case Study 9

Case Study 10

Case Study 11

Case Study 12

Case Study 13

Case Study 14

Case Study 15

Case Study 16

Case Study 17

Case Study 18

Case Study 19

Case Study 20

Case Study 21

Case Study 22

Case Study 23

Case Study 24

Case Study 25

Case Study 26

Case Study 27

Case Study 28

Case Study 29

Case Study 30

The Benediction

The Pandemic 2020

About the Author

This book is dedicated to the memory of my parents Jobe and Iris Brown and Perry Pierre for blessing me with our daughter, Tiya Ayanna Pierre.

Preface

Currently faced with the reality of death becoming the norm and no longer bearing an age-based gradient, I felt that it is both critical and crucial for the people of this world to view death and dying in a different perspective. I have been in the nursing field for the last twenty-nine years. For twenty-one of those years, I have dedicated my life to the care of hospice patients. I am always asked, How can you deal with death and dying every day? My short response is I didn't choose hospice, but hospice chose me. This scope of practice is divinely a calling from God. I could not do this without the power and strength provided from the Lord. For the last twenty-one years, I have compiled an archive of photos, notes, memoirs, cards, obituaries, videos, and documentaries in honor of the most unique hospice experiences in my career. Ironically, God has blessed me to forget many of the faces of those I have pronounced. Never have my journey been one of doom and gloom but one of great joy, as well a feeling of accomplishment.

In this book, I welcome you to explore the hospice journey with me. Reading this literary compilation will enlighten you, educate you regarding end of life, encourage you when you experience the dying process, entice you to be more prepared for death, evoke your thought processes to understand death as being more of a natural part of life, and entertain you when you explore the unusual case studies that I have shared. I hope and pray that this important literature will become a guideline and instructional manual to educate nurses to understand death more fully and to help both the patients and their families to visualize the unknown as an inevitable part of life. Dying should be embraced and understood. The efficacy of this book is intended to explore the perspective of dying the good death.

Not everyone has the opportunity of living a good life, but can dying a good death become our new norm? Yes, I believe it can! We have a choice as to how we live, but no one really knows if transitioning into the unknown is good or bad. I choose to believe it is good. Many want to go to heaven but do not want to die to get there. If we could just ascend into heaven without having to die, then that would definitely be an amazing way to depart. However, the acceptance of the complexity in which the manner of demise is determined and appointed for one's death is usually the unbearable issue preventing human eyes from truly seeing the good in end of life. We tend to focus on the causes of death rather than the release of how death brings peace to the person who is transitioning. This book is not contingent on how the living grieves post death but in hopes that we who remain as survivors will acknowledge death in a different magnitude. Let's try shifting the focus from the woe is me mentality and become more empathetic to understanding how the dying must feel to adventure from suffering to salvation, from pain to peace, from heartbreak to happiness, from fighting for life to freedom to live eternally, from struggles to serenity, from a jaded life to joy and jubilation in heaven.

I pray that this book will invoke the tough conversations regarding being prepared financially for final arrangements and discussing end-of-life wishes. Both living wills and materialistic wills are important. Planning certainly helps the survivors cope better, and this book will help you to see the importance of preparation. I sincerely hope that my work will become a cornerstone for learning across this nation. This book was not easy to compile because it evoked many repressed memories that I thought was better to forget, but God said different. God said to share my knowledge with all who has an ear and will hear. I pray that the case studies will be demonstrative that not every journey is similar but very unique. In my experience, no two people have ever died alike. This book is spiritually based in that I referenced biblical scriptures because this is how I have managed my hospice goals and journey. God has divinely provided me with the knowledge to survive twenty-one years of hospice. He has also provided me the courage and wisdom to author this book! If I can increase the wisdom, knowledge, and understanding of different cultures, races, and human beings, then I truly believe that God will be pleased with my obedience to fulfill his desires for this particular purpose of my life.

Dying the Good Death

It's time to change the vernacular from sorry for your loss

For your loved one is resting eternally because Jesus paid the cost

No more suffering and no more pain

Earth's departure is heaven's gain

Moving past the cause and reason of the demise

Unfortunately, grief and sorrow cannot be disguised

Ashes to ashes and dust to dust

Regardless of the circumstances in God we should trust

No longer worrying about the time frame of dying

To deny heartaches and suffering I would be lying

The living will hopefully realize that passing is not the end

But that eternal life is where life truly begins

Survivor's remorse is expected in many situations

Would it be uncanny when one dies to offer congratulations

To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord

No one knows the time nor day when God will pull your card

The Bible says to shed tears when someone is born

This world is cruel so it makes good sense to mourn

To rejoice when our mothers and our fathers depart

Instead, it's like a knife stabbing us deeply in our heart

We tend to ask, Why, Lord, did it have to happen this way?

When in actuality we should be grateful God gave us another day

Weeping may endure for the night

Jesus wept so to cry is all right

I could not work in this field of daily passing

If not for the power of praying and fasting

God is indeed my refuge and my very present help

How else do you think my soul has been covered and kept

I thank God daily for his grace, mercy, and this gift of employ

I never would have made it if not for his strength being my joy

Hospice chose me and is definitely my calling

So many fear the dissolution of life as appalling

One thing that does not discriminate is that we will all be deceased

Get your business in order, forgive, and make sincerest peace

Insurance is a must but assurance is a choice

Through the process of death always listen for God's voice

Not everyone who transitions chooses to believe

There are two roads to eternal that we live to achieve

Heaven is real and hell is too

The road you choose is up to you

After twenty-one years of hospice I know that God is real

When you read this book it will ultimately reveal

That no matter your status, race, wealth, or health

There is a such thing as dying the good death

Chapter 1

Death Is Inevitable

I truly believe that the hardest thing someone could ever be told is It's nothing more that we can do for you or There is no cure for your illness. Worst is to be told that you only have six months or less to live. Can you even imagine going in to visit your doctor for some nagging cough or bothersome pain and, after diagnostic testing, being told it's a fast-growing, untreatable malignant cancer? Imagine being born, making everyone happy, then dying and making everyone sad.

Death comes in many forms of finality, be it tragic or through illness. Tragic demise has a tendency to be devastating, shocking, and unbelievable. The thought of dying tragically is venturing into the unknown because of its untimely occurrence. The survivors are left thinking about the last few minutes of their loved one's final moments. You are left to try and remember the last conversation, texts, or beating yourself up because of an unresolved disagreement in which peace nor forgiveness was not established before receiving that heartbreaking news that your loved one is gone forever. Life can be altered, but death cannot be changed. Tragic death leaves so many unanswered questions and a sting of one wanting to ask the question why.

Many would venture to say that hospice is less traumatic than someone being killed in a violent situation or dying suddenly. Well, to me, death is painful either way, and it is my job as a hospice nurse to ease the sting of death by providing compassionate, holistic professional palliative/comfort care at end of life. Hospice is that moment in life when a terminal illness is diagnosed as incurable, such as but not limited to heart failure, cancer, AIDS, renal failure, liver failure, cirrhosis of the liver, COPD, Alzheimer's disease, dementia, ALS, strokes/CVAs, and countless other illnesses. When it comes to being diagnosed with a terminal illness or disease, one cannot circumvent the expected outcome of having to now prepare for one's exit from earthly to eternal. Some patients enter into a state of shock while others find it relatively welcoming to accept the inevitable, soon-to-be transition from living their best lives to preparing for the end of their lives. Many are well prepared, having funeral plans already in place, while others may struggle with getting their ducks in a row. Some grieve until their demise while some joyfully accept what God is allowing. Countless people are spiritual throughout the process and accept the will of God. Yet there are those who literally curse God and die never having believed that there is a life after death. If there is one truth I can genuinely share, it's that God does exist, where I will share some extremely fond memoirs proving such verity. God is as real as life and death itself!

One thing I've learned is that hospice is a calling. It's my calling, and twenty-one years ago, it chose me because it was God's permissive will for my life. I would never force religion nor my spiritual beliefs upon any individual. I certainly have prayed for the souls that God has entrusted to my care at end of life. Many theologians would venture to say that while one's birthday date is set in stone as well as one's death date, it's all about the dash which separates the two or how that person's life was lived as most important. My life's work is assuring that the final days of that dash is lived out in peace. Yes, I do believe that there is a heaven and a burning hell. I'm a living witness that not everyone goes to heaven. This career path that chose me symmetrically intertwines my strong spiritual beliefs with the conceptual hospice philosophical beliefs. I could not even imagine anyone choosing to do hospice without a sense of God's existence even if not over zealously pious. I just happen to be a licensed ordained minister that God chose to manage the care of those during their final days even if they choose not to choose God.

Is death prejudice? My answer would be an easy no. A commonly asked question which I will be honest to say I absolutely hate being asked is How long do I have? I've answered this question with an elusive I don't have a crystal ball or I'm not God or Only God knows or You will know when it's time or As I see symptoms arising, I will give you a time frame or my favorite response, "I don't know, but let's just continue to live one day at a time discussing any changes daily that you might have both physically and emotionally but not focusing on that last day because that's why I'm here: to make sure that your final day is the most comfortable day of your