Lessons from a Hospice Nurse: Making the End of Life’s Journey Easier
Dot Mayorga wrote an article for The Talbot Spy:
I’ve been a Registered Nurse for more than 20 years. As a hospice nurse, I have been up close and personal with death and dying. I’ve held space for patients and their loved ones through difficult and challenging times.
The pandemic, social distancing and hunkering down have given me time to reboot. I’ve reprioritized my life, coming face to face with my own mortality. The possibility of my own death prompted me to update my Advanced Directives and have further conversations with my sons. It has also given me renewed purpose to share my knowledge and experience.
As a hospice nurse, I’ve helped hundreds of people with their end of life experience, ranging from young adults to someone who was 106 years old. Women, men, affluent, poor, from grocery clerks to US Senators, doctors, lawyers, CEOs of multi-million dollar corporations and farmers. Some were better prepared than others and had a more peaceful end of life experience. For those who struggled, the most common denominator was fear.