#hospice-care

#hospice-care

Every week, someone from our family, usually my mom, goes to Wendy's and gets six chocolate Frostys. With significant mobility and communication difficulties after multiple brain surgeries and a terminal diagnosis, Gretchen chose hospice care in January of 2025. Although many associate hospice only with care around the time of a person's death, it actually just means that the goal shifts from treatment to quality of life, however long that may be.

I think everybody worries when they come to the last stages, no one knows what to expect, but these people are wonderful at relaxing you and they help you an awful lot.

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.

When my mom was dying, hospice came daily and stayed for about ninety minutes. They answered questions, checked what needed to be checked, and did what good professionals do: They made a brutal situation feel slightly less impossible. And then they left. Ninety minutes go fast when you are watching your mother decline. The rest of the day stretches out in a way that does not feel like time so much as exposure. Every sound becomes a data point.

There was a recognised need for a sort of support service for people who have a life-limiting or long-term illness to give them support... advice and really create a safe environment for them to be involved in.

"Miss Major is at home on hospice," Beck Witt Major said in a Facebook post Saturday. "She is comfortable and surrounded by love."

Sometime in the summer of 2017 I wrote in my journal, Jesus fucking Christ, please save me. I was trapped in hell, and I could see no way out. Our beautiful, sunny, two-bedroom penthouse apartment in the East Village which I had rented for Rayya to make her happy in the last months of her life had become a dungeon of misery, danger, degradation, drugs.

The Sussex Beacon has announced it is to become the only hospice in the country providing a dedicated service to the LGBT community, with a specialist focus on HIV care.

"For example, we proposed to keep our benefits the same as they are now. We just wanted them protected under a contract," Tobin said. "[Hospice East Bay] said no, they want the right to make them worse. And so, that's been really shocking and disappointing."

When your loved one is in hospice, it's crucial to advocate for their comfort and dignity. Communicate clearly about your concerns with the care team.