Hospice eases patients’ dying days

‘Whatever that time period is, we want it to be the best that it can be.’

David Bowman, holds a picture of his mother, Donna Ellen Bowman, who died of lung cancer on March 6, 2009, in her home in Middletown. Bowman was the primary caregiver for his mother with a lot of help from Hospice of Middletown.

Staff photo by Nick Graham David Bowman, holds a picture of his mother, Donna Ellen Bowman, who died of lung cancer on March 6, 2009, in her home in Middletown. Bowman was the primary caregiver for his mother with a lot of help from Hospice of Middletown.

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Volunteer Diane Niehaus makes a mobile in the craft room Sept. 17 at Hospice of Hamilton. The crafts are used as decorations in the rooms of hospice patients at the facility.

Staff photo by Nick Graham Volunteer Diane Niehaus makes a mobile in the craft room Sept. 17 at Hospice of Hamilton. The crafts are used as decorations in the rooms of hospice patients at the facility.

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By Meagan Engle, Staff Writer Updated 8:26 AM Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Editor's note: This is part of a monthlong series on the battle against cancer in Butler County.

David Bowman knew his mother wanted to spend the final months of her life at her home. But a fear, a panic really, about caring for his mother, who was diagnosed with lung cancer, hung in his mind.

"My biggest fear in taking her home was medicine. I was scared to death I was going to kill my mother with that medicine," said Bowman, a Middletown resident.

Bowman got help from Hospice of Middletown to manage the 111/2 pills his mother, Donna Ellen, had to take daily.

With the nonprofit's help, Bowman quit his part-time job and cared for his mother for seven months and six days until her death.

It meant everything, he said, for his mother to spend her final months not in a hospital bed or nursing home, but sitting in her favorite spot on the porch of her Smith Avenue home.

Hospice, located in Middletown and in Hamilton, cares for people expected to live six months or less. About 50 percent of people served by local hospice centers have cancer. Aggressive therapies are no longer working, or the patient calls for treatment to stop, said Teresa Tunnel, of Hospice of Middletown. Hospice brings nurses, social workers and chaplains to a person's home or wherever they are staying to manage symptoms with a focus on the quality of time they have left.

"Whatever that time period is, we want it to be the best that it can be," Tunnel said. Nurses are on call at all times and families also may get 24-hour care for up to five days if they are going on a trip or simply need someone else to be the primary caregiver for that time.

"We can be the caregiver and they can be the loved one," said Nan Zupancic, a social worker at Hospice of Hamilton. Hospice of Hamilton has 16 private rooms where they offer short-term care, in a new facility with a quiet atmosphere where nurses have a tracking unit so they are never paged over an intercom system and machines are kept out of sight.

At both locations, Medicare or private insurance covers costs or hospice uses funds to pay for medicines.

"We never ever charge a penny for any work we do," Tunnel said.

Bowman admits he didn't know anything about hospice before they helped his 80-year-old mother. But the workers became like family as they visited his mother's house two to three times a week, and any time he needed them.

"It just took all the stress off of me," he said. Nurses organized medicine, did breathing treatments, monitored blood pressure and temperature and answered all questions, Bowman said. Worker Melissa Murphy even came to his mother's house on her day off when Bowman called her panicked one day over medicine. They were there 24 hours a day in the last four days of his mother's life, when she slipped into a coma.

"She got to come home that last summer and sit on that porch," he said. "That was the only thing she wanted."

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