Boston Globe Columnist Offers “A Better Understanding of Hospice”

Photo: Joan Wickersham from joanwickersham.com

In a recent Boston Globe article, Joan Wickersham shares her family’s experience with hospice care, one that surprised her despite initially feeling as though she understood what the benefit had to offer.

Wickersham writes, “We understand now that the word ‘hospice’ means more than just care for the last few days of life. My mother-in-law needed to be released from the futile round of hospitalization followed by rehab followed by more hospitalization. She wasn’t yet actively dying, but she was no longer fixable. She didn’t have much control left over anything. But she wanted a say in how and where she lived the rest of her life, and hospice allowed her to have it.”

Her family’s story is powerful, and by sharing it in a major newspaper, Wickersham is helping patients and families understand the realities of hospice care, while countering persistent misconceptions.

Read the full article at BostonGlobe.com.