The pull to working in hospice

A few years back I had a family member pass away. She was terminal and on hospice. My family and I were her caregivers.

I had never taken care of a person before where they’re completely unable to do so themselves so it meant moving her and changing bedding, bathing her and administering medication to keep her comfortable. We had a few problems with hospice not showing up. Part of my family is well known throughout the state and they literally called the CEO. I remember the phone call in the background of them saying “we have called and called and nobody will come and nobody has brought her the meds she needs either.” Like it was a pain in the ass because she needed morphine. We also needed them! Because there are things that happen in the process of death and we didn’t know what was normal, or if it meant she was in pain. We desperately needed someone with the knowledge to be there to ease our anxiety and know what to do. So CEO is like “oh yeah? Nobody is coming? Imma pull up then.” And then she made the workers when they finally did show up leave, they did something to make her mad when they showed up and they left. I don’t remember I was sleep deprived.

Spent the next two days taking care of my loved one infront of her and i guess I very much impressed the CEO of hospice and was offered a job. I declined because.. that was really hard, all of it was so hard. It was hard to witness someone slowly die.

Well not only was everyone and their CEO there I also had friends show up the day of the death.

And when one of my friends had a loved one dying she called me. I did my best at helping her care for her grandmother until the end. She said I helped ground her during her grief. If people are pulling me in during the most personal and hardest parts of their life and say that I help, why shouldn’t I help more?

And that CEO didn’t just offer me a job she told me I had a gift that shouldn’t be wasted.

I don’t even know what steps to take to get there but obviously I’d have to kick my butt into gear and get ready for medical schooling. I want to do it though. It’s the only thing I WANT to do. I just felt like sharing.