Hospice agency helps fulfill wishes for clients
By Kathleen Folkerth
GREEN — The desire to go fishing seems simple enough. But for someone whose health is failing, it can be a wish that is out of reach.
But Heartland Hospice, a company that offers in-home hospice services, does what it can to fulfill the wishes of the clients it serves.
The organization offers a program it calls Heart’s Desire, where employees do what they can to help make a person’s dream come true. Lillian Poulson, a medical social worker with Heartland Hospice, said the agency uses a team approach to work with clients. The team members try to get to know the clients through conversation.
“We talk and offer words of comfort,” she said. “We try to find out what it is that makes people tick, what their desire is. Once we find out, we try to make that come true.”
Poulson said recently the agency helped fulfill the wish of a man with dementia who wanted nothing more than to go fishing.
“We took him fishing, and that was his dream,” Poulson said.
The man’s happiness was evident, she said.
“If you could see the look on his face, it just does something to you,” Poulson said.
She added that sometimes getting to do a favorite activity is all someone needs. Sometimes patients improve enough that they don’t need hospice care, becoming a “hospice graduate.” She said the man who went fishing might be an example of that.
“Ever since that fishing trip, I think he will be another hospice graduate,” Poulson said. “They start feeling better and start to rally.”
Other wishes have been simple, such as a man who wanted to speak to his children again. Their relationship had been strained, but the hospice workers were able to help him get in contact with his children and speak to them by phone. A face-to-face meeting is being worked on, Poulson said.
Then there was the woman who wanted to see her niece marry but was too ill to live long enough for the planned wedding. The agency helped the woman’s family as they planned a mock wedding ceremony at a church and small reception afterward.
“They went the whole nine yards,” Poulson said. “It was small and quaint, but she wanted to see her niece walk down that aisle. She was like a new person.”
Coming up this month, the hospice is helping set up a pool party at Sumner on Ridgewood in Copley for a woman who was an avid swimmer.
Even though most of the clients realize this is likely the last time they will do a particular activity, they enjoy the experience, Poulson said.
“In a lot of situations, from their illness they’ve been cut off from the things that bring them joy,” Poulson said. “They have such a desire to do that one thing again so they can feel whole again. To give them that one more time is what they need. It’s a good shot in the arm.”
Heartland Hospice is based in Toledo but has an Akron area office at 767 E. Turkeyfoot Lake Road. For more information, call (330) 899-0871.
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