Personal Narrative: My Experience As A Hospice Volunteer

Growing up in a public housing development, I longed to one day help individuals from an underserved community obtain care. At this soup kitchen, my responsibilities included welcoming guests, serving food, waiting tables, and cleaning trays. I empathized with their excitement when watching them receive a hot cup of tea on a sub-freezing day or a book bag with a built-in trench coat on a stormy day. Having an opportunity to spend time with and learn from the diversity of the population that we served was invaluable. Each person had a unique story to tell and just wanted someone to hear it.

Volunteering at a busy food bank transformed me in a way I couldn’t even imagine. Being up front and center among people taught me confidence I had never experienced. While performing my countless roles (providing prayer for clients, setting up food

The Frontline special on Being Mortal, written by Atul Gawande, shows the difficult side of healthcare that many doctors struggle with, how to confront death with patients. He brings light to topics like terminal illness and facing mortality. Atul Gawande is an oncologist whom, like many doctors, still wonders how to tell patients that their treatment is no longer working. He decided to collaborate with different physicians to gain a better understanding of how to approach the situation.

Throughout my life, there has been several times that I have stopped to help someone with a flat tire in the rain or return a lost item to the lost and found and did not expect a return favor. I have had a few weeks to think about this assignment and the act of kindness that comes to my mind is the time that I and my Paramedic partner in Cape Coral, Florida had taken and older “late eighties” woman who was wheelchair bound to the hospital for a medical problem. She lived with her frail husband who we could tell did his best to make sure he was taken care of her the best he could. They lived in a small single story home in a senior community and were well known to the EMS community for repeat public assist calls. A public assist call that we

Atul Gawande’s book, “Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End,” explores different themes such as, aging, death, and the mishandling of both aging and death by the medical profession’s. This book also addresses what it means to live well near the end of life. It is not just to survive, not just to be safe, not just to stay alive as long as the medical technology allows, but, according to the author it is about what living truly means to an individual. The author describes that the idea of “Being Mortal” developed as he watched his elderly father go through a steep decline in his health and the eventual death. He soon realized that during his medical education and training he was never taught how to help his patients with managing

The last of my emotions were compassion and motivation. I was motivated to be compassionate for the patient and his family. Upon entering the patient’s room I finally understood my place and part of how to care for this patient. This hospice clinical will affect me for years to come, it taught me how to show compassion even when I am scared for the patient. It taught me that just because my patient is dying, or is very much near death, doesn’t mean that they are unaware of their condition.

My fourth day at Agape hospice I was the administrative of the day. When I was asked to be the administrative of the day I was nervous again. I was nervous because I was in charge of the office in the front.By being in charge of the front,I had the opportunity to work at the front desk by answer phone calls, and help assist the staffs.I was afraid of things going wrong and thing did went wrong. The problem was some of my calls wasn 't coming though. Hours had pass I haven 't receive any calls until I told Nikki what was going on.After I told Nikki what was going I begin to receive phone calls. That day I didn 't receive many phone calls, so therefore I had an easy day because no was there. As for the phone calls I had to write down notes for

Kevin t. Keith addresses his argument on why doctors should should stop futile treatment in a persistent tone.which is addressed to the healthcare network and the families of terminally ill patients. He presented a fair argument with questionable facts, ok anecdotes, and substandard

What is life’s most extraordinary pleasure? For many, money, power, and/or fame come to mind, and the idea of helping others does not register. It seems for every person eager to help, there are millions ready to hurt or disregard those in need. Nevertheless, the world is not beyond salvation; there are numerous individuals willing to give their time and labor to transform the world into a better place for all. These devoted people are volunteers, and they believe life’s most extraordinary pleasure is the joy of helping others. I experience this joy every time I volunteer, and I recognize it as one of life 's greatest pleasures.

Stood at the foot of a bed, on a sunny late July afternoon, I watched someone die.

A memorial journey The time when my baseball friends and I almost got lost in the woods but found are way out the woods the hard way. Not knowing what mother nature mess we were getting into. We still went down deep in the scary green and brown place.i want to regent what we did that day. I loved going them we were starting to go down, but then i got a thorn stuck to my pants and then i feel face first luckily i did not have my glasses on then we found a hideout where it looked like someone sleept there even we also found some pants and clothes. we found manure guess how i found it by stepping on it while we were half way there we found a small road that lead back up

The natural ministry that I am associated with is the care team ministry. I often assist with people that are in pain, who are feeling broken or lost or just need someone to help to redirect them to God or to introduce God to them, I am grateful that God has put me in a position where I can be an assistant to those that are in need of God service .my natural ministry is also to the elderly those that are shut-in the lonely the forgotten many of the people that I am associated with is between the age of 75 -104 many of them don’t have anyone , no family and most of them no home , I recently met a man who was living out of his car for over two months , when I met him he was hungry and homeless , I thank God for allowing me to be a service to

Volunteering at a hospice company was a turning point in my life. I find the United States is still segregated by age. I never truly understood that ageism existed, I assumed it was a thing of the past or only happened in extremely rare cases. This is my second year volunteering to help talk to patients, and my first year writing someone’s life story, her legacy. Most young people never get a chance to interact with the elderly, and are separated because of the fast paced society we have built around those 18-30 years olds. However, many younger people are missing out on incredible people. every time I volunteered I heard so many amazing beautiful stories of love, loss, war, and of course a few jokes I’ve heard about a thousand times, but

The Volunteer Spirit is something I experience every single day with my immediate family and my volunteer family. Growing up in Tennessee, I have spent my whole life dreaming of attending and graduating The University of Tennessee as my four older siblings and grandad have done before me. The Volunteer Spirit, to me, means loving your fellow man, working hard, and possibly most importantly, loving Tennessee Volunteers Football!

Your site had been wonderful to use. The feedback was helpful. I realized I couldn't make a repetitive dream into a book as I hope. I decided to publish the story what I wrote in a series of blog post. This is less stressful for me since I had trouble revising. I would try to revise drafts I have, however my mind had me writing another story. While reading over a chapter from One Death at a Time my mind create another story about a woman in the future. I didn't see a connection to the story I was revising.