Blue Skies Volunteers Attend Volunteer Leadership Conference: Ignite the Future

Volunteers from Blue Skies Hospice attended the virtual conference, Ignite The Future, on August 2nd at Jasper Counry Hospital in Rensselaer, Indiana. Volunteers participated in sessions regarding "the heart of hospice," "spirituality at the end of life," and "reaching the cognitively impaired patient."

Volunteer Julie Hancin, Volunteer Pat DeGan, and Volunteer Coordinator Pearl Masciotra

Blue Skies Hospice House Remodeled

The Blue Skies Hospice House underwent remodeling in April and May, the newly improved welcome new patients and their families. We have two patient rooms, a family area, kitchen, and dining area. Blue Skies thanks staff and volunteers who made all of this possible. We are open for tours. If interested, please call or email us.

5 Questions To Change Your End-Of-Life Path

Dr. Monica Williams-Murphy writes movingly at KevinMD.com about the importance of having an end-of-life plan for yourself and loved ones. It is uncomfortable, but of the highest importance, to consider issues associated with end-of-life. The consequences of avoiding "the conversation" are dramatic and irreversible. Dr. Williams-Murphy bases her ideas on her education, but also on her personal experience as a medical doctor. The entire article is worth reading, and at its conclusion she suggests "five questions to change your end-of-life path" -

1. How do people typically die from ___(stroke, heart attack, etc. or any disease)____ ?
2. If this was your mother or father, what would you do next?
3. How will we know when to ask for hospice care?
4. What are the signs of dying?
5. Can you support us in trying to take our loved one home?

Hospice Offers Diveristy of Services to Diverse Population

Hospice care is growing more necessary and more popular with year, but many people still have antiquated notions of the services that hospice can provide. The Associated Press recently ran an article that dispelled many myths about hospice care to show how, as the boomer population ages, hospice facilities and organizations are meeting their needs. Blue Skies Hospice is devoted to meeting the needs of all its patients, and much like the organizations described in the article, will use whatever care and comfort methods the patients and their families desire.

From the article:

Chief among those myths is the notion that hospice consists of friendly visitors who sit in a darkened room and hold Grandma's hand while she dies, says Robin Stawasz, family services director at Southern Tier Hospice and Palliative Care in upstate New York.

"It's just not what we do. We come in and help people go golfing or go snowbird down to Florida, or go out to dinner several nights a week. We help them get to the casinos on weekends," she said. "This is not getting ready to die. This is living — living now, living tomorrow, making the best possible life with what you have."

According to the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization, an estimated 1.58 million patients received hospice care from more than 5,000 programs nationwide in 2010, more than double the number of patients served a decade earlier. More than 40 percent of all deaths in the United States that year were under the care of hospice, which provides medical care, pain management, and emotional and spiritual support to patients with terminal illnesses.

Continue reading here.

Blue Skies Holds Raffle For Employees at Golden Living and Hammond-Whiting Care Center

Blue Skies held a raffle for employees at Golden Living in Merrillville, Indiana and Hammond-Whiting Care Center in Whiting, respectively. Winners received a gift bag from Bath and Body Works. Blue Skies organized this raffle to show our appreciation for the work that the employees at each facility do for all their residents, and the assistance they provide to Blue Skies hospice patients. The winner at Hammond-Whiting was Certified Nursing Assistant Monique Grandberry. The winner at Golden Living was a CNA in the Alzheimer's unit, Shakitrea Tate (pictured below).



Joy In Hospice Service

Dr. Cornel West said that "the benchmark of greatness is finding joy in the service of others." The professionals and volunteers at Blue Skies Hospice provide care and comfort to the patients and their families because it brings them joy. Service is a passion at Blue Skies. Patients at Blue Skies are in the hands of loving and giving professionals. The sentiments that Utah hospice workers express in a new article, "End of Life Caregivers Find Joy in Profession," reflect the feelings and beliefs at Blue Skies:


OREM — When Peggy Cann first played her harp in a hospital for a friend, the woman in the next room asked the nurse to "send in the angels" playing the "heavenly music." Now, she uses her music every day to help relieve pain when the medications aren't strong enough to.

Cann is an independent nurse who works with hospice care. Doctors typically refer patients to hospice care when they have a terminal illness, and often times family and friends aren't equipped to handle the transition. That's where Cann and other independent nurses come in.

Cann has been certified to use music for healing and transition. An art-form, she says, that requires being in tune with her patients.

"I'll watch their breathing and it's almost like watching a conductor," Cann said. "If their breathing slows, the music slows and the patient is my conductor for the music."

Virginia Yaeger is one of Cann's patients. She has spent the last 10 months at Greenwood Manor, coping with a mysterious adrenal gland illness. Her only escape, she says, is music.

It's therapeutic and it lifts my spirits. Really, I felt like I was in another realm. I didn't feel like I was here. It was like I was lifted into another realm.

–- Virginia Yaeger, patient

"It's therapeutic and it lifts my spirits," Yaeger said. "Really, I felt like I was in another realm. I didn't feel like I was here. It was like I was lifted into another realm."

Verna Nelson, a hospice nurse, cared for Yaeger's husband at Greenwood Manor before he passed away years ago. She has seen the benefit of treating people with music, even in the simplest ways.

"Music helps people to relax," Nelson said. "A lot of the problems arise because people are unable to relax and get a good night's rest. Life is much more worthwhile if a person can get a good night's sleep."

Nelson says part of her job is helping her patients and their families accept and somehow move forward through the natural process of life — a process Yaeger says people are reluctant to accept.

"A lot of people don't have the right attitude toward death," Yaeger said. "There's a lot of fear."

Some of that fear she says comes from those who love us most.

"I know several cases here where the person wants to go and they should've died several years ago, but the husband, wife, or children will not let them go," Nelson said.

Hospice is to help maintain hope. It's to help guide. It's to help educate.

–- Jody Dustin, RN

And some people choose to fight, or concede death, alone.

"People that are alone that say they don't want to bother their family," Nelson said. "They don't want to let them know what they're going through. So it's heartbreaking to see a person who feels alone at the time they know their life is limited."

Jody Dustin has been a hospice nurse for eight years. She has watched many families and individuals cope with the reality of death.

"Hospice is to help maintain hope," Dustin said. "It's to help guide. It's to help educate. It's to bring relief to, maybe, a situation that the patient or the family does not know in what direction to go."

But, she says, that no matter the emotional state of her patients, her job is to follow their lead.

"The patient and the family is the driver and you're there to give the directions. And if they don't want to go down a certain path because they're not ready, then maybe you can just try to find a detour."

Dustin says that the profession isn't a sad one.

"It's very rewarding to be able to be invited into these people's home at such critical emotional time," Dustin says.

But some of the reward may come from the very purpose Dustin serves, who works hard to make the hospice environment positive for patient and caretakers alike. Or because people like Cann find a way to give patients a moment of rest when they need it most.

"It's very satisfying that I might be a messenger," Cann said. "The peace comes from heaven. And if I can bring that and usher that in that's very satisfying."

Meet The Blue Skies Staff in New Video

Take a moment to watch the new video featuring many members of the Blue Skies Hospice staff. The video gives insight into the compassion and professional care that Blue Skies offers patients and their families.