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Hospice of Mercy helps patients and families face end-of-life decisions
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Marty Dyer, left, sits next to her mother, Peggy Gores, as hospice volunteer Betsy Allen stands nearby at Gores' Durango home. For the last six months, Hospice of Mercy has helped the Gores family care for their mother, who suffered a series of strokes and is in her end-of-life stages./Photo by Todd Newcomer.
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by Stacy Falk
Five-year-old Shannon O'Meara tosses a dirty bed cloth down the laundry chute and runs back
to give her grandma a kiss. Shannon and her two sisters love to apply lipstick for their grandma, make her Bailey's
Irish Cream floats and massage lotion into her cracked hands.
Peggy Gores is their grandma. Her room is filled with boxes of plastic gloves, baby wipes, tissues, various
ointments, pain medications and oxygen tanks. The paintings in her room and hung throughout the house tell a story.
The cabin by the Piedra River, the canyon known as Chaco, the flowers in the windowsill are all part of Peggy Gores'
past life, a life when she could still paint and still remember.
Gores, 83, is in her end-of-life stages and family members have accepted the fact that she can die today, tomorrow,
in a week or in a month. A series of strokes has caused severe brain damage and has put Gores into a state of
dementia. The last time she tried to walk, she broke her pelvis and is now bedridden. But thanks to hospice, she has
the comfort of an ergonomic hospital bed where she will remain until her death, and the support of a team to assist
her and her family until that time.
For the past six months Hospice of Mercy has helped the Gores family care for their mother and care for themselves.
One of Gores' nine children, Martha "Marty" Dyer, quit her teaching position at Durango High School last April to get
her mother out of a nursing home and back with her husband of 62 years, Clyde Gores.
At first Dyer said she had no idea that hospice was an option. She struggled as the primary caregiver for her mother
with Home Health Care moving in and out. She said she repeatedly asked about hospice and was told that her mother
would not qualify.
"As I became more worn out, I decided to call hospice myself," she said. "A hospice worker came to the house and said
Mom was definitely ready for hospice."
The criteria for admission into hospice is not related to the illness - although 60 percent of hospice patients in La
Plata County are cancer related - but whether the patient is ready in terms of being emotionally and spiritually
prepared, said Dr. Patrick Kearney, Medical Director of Hospice.
In many situations, families feel their loved ones are being referred into hospice after it has become too late,
Kearney said. Usually this is either because the family does not want to give up or the physicians don't want to give
up, he said. Medical students are trained in treating people with the intentions of curing, but saving lives is not
always possible and can be difficult for people to accept, he said.
One of the key elements in hospice is that it takes place within the individual's personal settings and will focus
care through pain and symptom management, said Julie Madden, volunteer/bereavement coordinator for the past 17 years.
Six of the 23 patients currently using hospice care live in a nursing home.
Betsy Allen, hospice volunteer, spends about two hours a week with Gores. She helps Gores manage her pain with
healing-touch therapy. Other nurses and volunteers assist throughout the week in bathing, check ups and providing
respite for family members, said Madeline "Maddie" O'Meara, another daughter of Gores.'
The services provided by hospice are family inclusive and last well after an individual's death. Talking with social
workers, grief counselors and chaplains has been extremely helpful, Dyer said. Pat Amthor, social worker with hospice
for the past 10 years, said that hospice is not completely understood by everyone because death has become one of
those taboo topics in our society.
"The 'die' word is a very hard thing, and you kind of couch around it," Amthor said.
For the Gores family, not everyone agrees with how to care for their mom, and some have decided not to be involved.
But Dyer said that hospice has created a buffer within the family in a sense that it keeps family members from
getting upset with each other when making decisions.
O'Meara, mother of three girls, often makes the drive from Montrose to spend time with the family. She said it is
really interesting to see how the children interact and understand what is going on.
"Sometimes I get the feeling that Mom doesn't know me anymore, but with the kids it's different," she said. "It's
beautiful."
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Betsy Allen, left, and Marty Dyer stand on the wheelchair ramp accessing the home of Marty's mother, Peggy Gores. While some hospice patients receive care in health-care facilities, many stay at home, where they are most comfortable and in familiar surroundings./Photo by Todd Newcomer
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"Sometimes I get the feeling that Mom doesn't know me anymore, but with the kids it's different," she said. "It's
beautiful."
Kelly O'Meara, 10, said she loves to spend time with her grandma. She said she doesn't really talk to her friends
about her experience because they think it's weird. "Most of my friends' grandmas are a lot younger," she said.
O'Meara said she and her family have learned to love her mom for who she is now. "I would think the kids would be
scared, but no, they love her, attend to her, help feed her and have learned to be patient in this process, as sad
and uncomfortable as it may be at times," she said.
"She doesn't like green beans anymore," giggled Kelly. "She's just funny."
Kelly said she likes to imagine what her grandma is thinking. "Grandma said we were going somewhere, and I asked her
where, and she said 'the place where they serve you treasures,' and I said 'Oh,' and she said 'but we have to bring
our own tea cup and saucer.'"
It was almost something out of Alice and Wonderland, O'Meara said. In this stage of life the person is so close to
death that maybe the mindset is partly there, she said. "Mom has talked about friends who are waiting for her and
that she's preparing for that journey."
It is important to remember that hospice is not just about death, but using this time as one more experience in life,
hospice volunteer Madden said. A lot can happen at the end of life, and a big part of what hospice workers and
volunteers do is help the person get to a place where they feel comfortable with dying, she said.
As the orange-scented candle burned in Gores' room, she was able to murmur through a couple of sentences about the
past, something that her daughters say rarely happens. She spoke about a river trip down the Green River and her
explorations of a magnificent place, the Grand Canyon.
When asked about her Bailey floats, Gores just smiled.
"We have sat with mom and talked to her about death," Dyer said. "We're ready for her to go whenever she needs to,
for we watch her die a little bit everyday, and we lose pieces of her everyday."
Dyer said that they have already gone through their grieving, and that Mr. Gores has learned to except that his wife
is not coming back.
The hospice chaplain, Earl Caudill, has met with Dyer and other family members to help plan a memorial based on
Gores' wishes.
"It's an honor to be invited into these people's lives because we see people in a very real way. We're not always
there, but if we're there when someone dies then that's quite an honor to have that moment with the family," Caudill
said.
Caudill, working with the spiritual and religious aspects of hospice, said that the most difficult part of his job is
watching people struggle with how to deal with their death and watching what families go through.
"We are involved in people's lives and are making a difference in people's lives and that's a good thing," he said.
"There are a lot of joys in that."
Dyer said she will never regret the time she has spent helping her mom die at home. "We try to do things a bit
whimsical," she said as she put the clean Winnie the Pooh sheet on the hospital bed.
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