Orientation at Hospice and Palliative Care of Western Colorado

The last three days of my life were spent in twenty-six hours of volunteer orientation for Hospice. They were intense hours investigating hospice, from the origin of the concept right down to the brass tacks of our local community-wide effort to help people manage …“physical, psychosocial and spiritual symptoms resulting in optimal comfort and quality of life for persons impacted by a serious illness.” In essence, that is the explanation of Palliative Care and Hospice, according to a handout given during the learning session (from Hospice and Palliative Care of Western Colorado, 2008).

(See previous post about Cups, the coffee house owned and operated by Hospice of Western Colorado.)

Briefly highlighted in this orientation were teaching lessons and interactive activities including:

Hospice Pioneers and its History, Missions and Vision; Serving our Communities, Living our Values, Critical Thinking, Self Care, Therapeutic Communication, Safety Issues, Ethics and Boundaries, Advanced Concepts of Grief, Interdisciplinary Care Planning, Spiritual Care, Communication Activities, Introduction to Grief, Organizational Ethics, HIPAA and Information Technology

As you might think, much information was covered in three days.

To obtain a more complete view of our local hospice, visit Hospice of Western Colorado. The website is extensive and gives lots of information.

One exercise I thought was most valuable during the orientation session concerned "loss". The result of the teaching and completion of the questionnaire helped portray just an inkling of what true loss might mean when facing the end of life.

Here is the exercise: a five square by five square grid was filled out by each participant. The squares were to be filled (left to right) with five items or concepts regarded as ...

Most Prized or Useful Material Possession;
Most Important Activities;
Favorite Places, e.g., nature ;
Most Valued Body Parts;
5 Beloved Relationships in Your Life

With the toss of a die, and each player enabled to toss the die, grids were X’d out as the numbers fell. One by one, a prized possession, a life activity, a favorite place, a body part or a beloved relationship was lost to the roll of the die. You see where this is going?

After thirty minutes of dice rolling, half of the valued concepts were gone. Actually, more than half were gone, by implication. If one of your valued body parts such as your eyes were lost to the toss of the dice, then your car (a prized possession) would also be lost, since you would no longer be able to drive. One loss compounds other losses.

Here is my grid.
I found this an exercise which made me even more grateful for those privileges that I am currently allowed.

Why not complete this same mental exercise, fill in the squares, and think about your own gifts and mercies? I guarantee it is an eye opener.

From StoreFront:

Cool picture showing see-through, clear clogs. Now this is for the person who has gone to all that work knitting socks and wants to show them off! The clogs can be purchased at the site referenced above.

My current pair of socks on the pointy sticks has way too many little slubs to show them off with clear clogs, but maybe the next pair will be more impressive!

Halloween Luminaries and Black Mice

You, too, can make a Mouse Motel just like Martha Stewart's. Her zine gives good directions at Good Things.

When I saw this photo in the latest issure of Martha Stewart, it delighted me to the point of actually trying to find some realistic mice to use in decorations this fall.

(You can read about how to make Martha's Mouse Motel here at Good Things, and directions are given also.)

Look what I found at WalMart for One US Dollar per mouse!

These mice are black, felted, and just the size of a well fed rodent.

I put one in the cupboard next to the spices and got a chuckle when DH opened the cabinet; yeh, it does not take much to amuse me.

(ghost picture jars courtesy of Family Corner)

And I even tried making Craft Style luminaries with paper lunch bags discussed here at Halloween crafts. Target was my shopper's paradise for lunch bags at a reasonable price of less than two dollars for 40 red paper sacks.

A picture of luminary supplies:

The first attempt at spraying acrylics on the paper bags was not successful because I thinned the paint with too much water. Starting over the next day with a clean spray bottle (be sure to soap out the acrylic from the spray nozzle or it will never spray again!), the second try turned out better. Instead of votive candles, I used battery powered tea lights.

But for Halloween Night, because there were so many bags in the package, I will go ahead and use all 40 sacks and put votive candles in glass holders inside them.