My name is Sandra Morrical and this is my story about being a Hospice Nurse. Being a Hospice Nurse isn't for everyone, and I get told that all the time. My friends and family constantly tell me they don't know how I do it day in and day out. You know the old saying someone has to do it. Well, it's true someone does have to care for terminally ill people up until they die. This is the job of a Hospice Nurse.

What makes a Hospice Nurse? First, you have to have a Hospice heart. This is a term that stuck with me, after a family member of a patient I was taken care of; told me I had a hospice heart. The nature of nursing is caring, and this is specifically true of a hospice nurse. Nurses that work in the hospital help patients and their families in times of sickness. Nurses that work in the long-term, rehab, and assisted living facilities deals with patients in the long term with an illness that is not terminal, but needs skilled nursing care. Hospice Nurses help terminally ill patients and their families at a time when the patient had decided to stop life-prolonging medical treatments.

One of the largest parts of being a Hospice Nurse involves helping patients, and their families, feel more comfortable about death and providing them with the emotional support they need. I use patient center care as a hospice nurse. Patient-center care is providing care that is respectful and sensitive to the individual patient's preferences, needs, and values. A hospice heart ensures the patient's and families' values and wishes to guide all care decisions. The one important aspect of hospice care is ensuring the patient has pain under control and is comfortable for the remainder of their life. It comes down to the quality of life, not the quantity of life.

Yes, it does take a special type of person to be a hospice nurse, but a hospice continual care nurse takes a hospice heart. The continual care nurse has an important job. The care a CC Nurse gives has a meaningful impact on many individuals. I believe becoming a CC Nurse with hospice was a calling. A calling like a Nun or Priest has a calling to follow God and teach his word. It's a calling to be present as the hospice patient transitions to the next phase of life/death and to help their family with the emotional distress of dealing with their loved one dying. I believe it is a calling because I feel privileged and honored to assist the patients and their families move through the transition from life to death.

Many cultures treat death as a part of life to be celebrated with family and friends. My hospice heart's philosophy is to be the angel that comforts and tries to ease the patients in the final stages of life. As a hospice CC nurse, I have been called a guardian angel or just an angel by patients and by families. Whether Hospice Nurses are angels or not is not the question. It's the spirituality of the Nurse that creates the angel identity. Spirituality is a huge part of hospice care. It's not important what you believe or what the family or patient believes, just that the nurse has some kind of spiritual belief. This is what creates a hospice heart.

I am a spiritual individual and it gives me as a hospice nurse, especially a Continual Care Nurse, an advantage when dealing with the end of life. A spiritual person can often read into things more than a person who is not spiritual, especially when a patient is in the dying process. As a spiritual person, I see and feel things happening to the dying patient. I understand that talking to someone who has passed on is not a hallucination. Just because we can't see it doesn't mean they aren't there. This is whereas a spiritual person I talk to the patient and ask questions. If they can't answer me I just acknowledge there is something there. I have felt the presence of people and things throughout my hospice care. This will be discussed later in the book.

If a patient can answer the question, the answer may range anywhere from angles to relatives reaching out to them, motioning them to come and join them. These answers may also assist the family with the acceptance of the patient death. The family hears the patient believes they are going to be with loved ones when they pass. This helps the family believe the patient is going to a loving and peaceful place. This is good for patients who are in a lot of pain for years. The family feels the patient will be out of pain, and at peace with love and comfort. I have made an enormous difference in helping families and patients with the crossover from here to the other side. I know this because I have seen the difference between patients and families that have a spiritual belief and ones who do not. The patients and families that don't have some kind of spiritual belief have a hard time at the end of life.

The reason these families and patients have a hard time is due to fear. It's the fear of the unknown. The families feel it's the end and their loved one is gone forever. Like I tell my patients' families, death just ends a body, not a relationship. This at least gives them some peace at this time. The patients have fear because they don't believe they are going anywhere. Many people are afraid to die because they feel it is the end. A spiritual belief gives them hope. It gives them hope because faith nurtures hope. If a patient doesn't have the faith in where they are going when they die, they become afraid of dying. The belief that something or someone is waiting for you does make it easier for the patients and their families.

Nurses in hospitals and nursing facilities give emotional support. As a hospice nurse, I give spiritual support. A hospice heart is intuitive to the clues the dying patient is giving when close to the end and can help the family notice these clues to get as prepared as they can. As a hospice heart, my spirituality plays an important role in caring for the hospice patient and their families. Empathy and compassion show when dealing with dying patients and their families. People can see if you care or not.

Another thing that involves having a Hospice Heart knows what hospice is and how it helps patients with a terminal illnesses. Many people including nurses have no idea what hospice is. When you say hospice the first thing people think of is the end. They think their loved one is dying today or tomorrow. This is not true. Hospice is implemented whenever the need exists and usually where the patient lives. Hospice helps individuals that have been diagnosed with a terminal illness, and the doctor has given them a life expectancy of a year or less.

Spirituality and knowing what hospice is and how both are used to help patients and their families are just the surfaces. A hospice heart looks at care as a patient/family center care. You are not only caring for the patient, but also the family. Keeping a patient pain-free and comfortable during the transition from this world to the next is one part. A hospice heart also understands the family is also in need of care and support. The family needs the reinsurance they did the right thing by putting their loved one on hospice. They need to know they have the right to grieve how they want and feel how they want. A hospice heart assures them of this.

The last thing is a hospice heart realizes they can sympathize with the patient and family, but can't understand what they are going through unless they have gone through it themselves. Many nurses don't consider that. A hospice heart will have families look back on their hospice experience with gratitude and knowledge that everything possible was done to give their loved one a peaceful transition to the other side; in other words, a peaceful death.