How Life's Experience Shaped a Hospice Career

Vince Chiles, MSW

In the summer of our nation’s Bicentennial my aunt Joan came to live out her last days at my childhood home. I was 14 that summer, and in the midst of the confusing time of adolescence, my mother’s youngest sister was dying of breast cancer. Aunt Joan needed a caregiver, and our home was the most logical place for her to come live her final days. In 1976 there was no hospice in our town and there were only a few hospices in the United States. My mother did not have a nurse to visit and instruct her on how to administer pain medication or what to do in the event of my aunt’s death. There were no counselors or social workers to visit Joan’s family to provide emotional support and explain what was happening before our bewildered eyes.

My memory of my aunt prior to that time was one of a vibrant, joyful, and generous soul, who loved her nephews and nieces deeply. When she came to live out her last days, she was beaten by the rigors of cancer and radiation therapy. In her despair and discomfort she was bitter and disillusioned by the grave reality of what remained of her life.

My aunt Joan was in the midst of her life; I am as old now as she was when she passed and can’t help but think how her experience would have been different if she, her family, or even I would have had the services of a hospice.

As a hospice supervisor I can’t help but think how those last days for my aunt Joan have influenced my work in hospice. Hospice provides comfort for those at the end of life and does that with compassionate visits and nursing education regarding symptom management and medication administration. Nurses, social workers, chaplains, volunteers, and home health aides all visit at the bedside and are all comfortable talking about life and death and anything else the patient or family needs to talk about or say.

It seems to me now in retrospect that my aunt Joan was the first hospice patient I ever met. I did not think at 14 that anyone should die like she did, and felt betrayed when I saw her in her casket as if she hadn’t even been ill. I strive every day to assure that patients like my aunt Joan receive the very best care so they can live out their last days free of pain, and as full of quality and dignity as possible. Hospice assures that we each can live our lives to the very end with a sense of completion and peace. I am so blessed that I can help prevent the confusion I felt at 14 for other youngsters and families everyday in my own work in hospice.

Vince Chiles, MSW