Assisting at Home

11/10/2025

It can be hard to discuss these things with your grown children.

11/03/2025

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=820739393389331&id=100063598335849

It is not about us.
If a patient were to ask outright "What do you believe spiritually?" you should respond: "This is not about me and what I believe. Can you share with me what you think happens? What do you believe?"
A conversation is started as they sort out their beliefs and you listen. You do not add "Have you ever thought about this?" That is the job of clergy. That is the time you suggest that perhaps they are having questions and thoughts that a chaplain could help them with. Ask "Can I help make the contact?"
End of life work is sacred work. Everyone's belief is sacred. Yes, as end of life approaches we will have many life questions to consider: life’s meaning, purpose, and our beliefs. And yes, the patient may ask anyone who happens to be close by and who they feel comfortable with what they think.
Our job is to gently redirect the question back to them and their thoughts, not share ours, AND to offer to bring in someone more trained than we are.

10/22/2025

https://dailycaring.com/how-long-does-medicare-pay-for-nursing-home-care/

Medicare covers skilled nursing facility care for a short time after a qualifying hospital stay. Learn what’s covered, what isn’t, and how to appeal if Medicare ends coverage sooner than expected.

09/16/2025

Thank you Adrian for the words of wisdom.

Even when we know logically that it is not deserved, guilt still finds its way into grief. It is our mind’s way of trying to change the unchangeable, as if by taking the blame we could somehow make things different. We go over every detail, searching for the one moment we could have done better, the one choice that could have kept them here.
This guilt is one of the cruelest parts of grief. It sneaks in when we are already broken and makes us feel even more alone. But here is the truth: guilt is not proof that we failed somehow, it is proof that we love, desperately. We love so deeply that we cannot accept their death without trying to take responsibility for it.
If you feel this, you are not alone. Every grieving person I have met has carried guilt in some form. It is normal, even if it is painful. And while it may never disappear entirely, over time it eases. The love remains, the memories remain, but the sharp bite of guilt does not stay forever.
Be gentle with yourself in the meantime. You did the best you could with what you knew then. Love is still what ties you to your person, not guilt. And love is the part that lasts.

09/16/2025

Dementia is an umbrella term for a set of symptoms that can occur due to over 120 causes.

Alzheimer’s disease happens to be the most common cause of dementia.

Below is a representation of 15 of those causes.

08/03/2025

“Let’s make this time matter.”

Thanks for your leadership in end of life Gabby Jimenez.

“No matter how heavy the diagnosis, no matter how long or short the time, we still get to choose what to do with the days we have left. We still get to love, to speak, to laugh, to cry, and to say goodbye in a way that matters. To say what we need to say. And if we are lucky, we get the chance to say we are sorry, to forgive, to make amends, and to find some kind of peace with all of it; the past, the present, and whatever comes after.”

In 1987, my mom was told she had a year to live.

She had lung cancer that had spread to her brain. I was twenty-three years old, living four hours away. No training in death, no roadmap for grief, no idea how to hold space for someone staring down the end of their life.

There was distance between us, not just in miles or years, but in the kind of closeness I quietly wished I could have had with my mom.

I remember sitting by her bedside, trying to wrap my head around what she was saying. A year to live. One year. That’s what they gave her. And in my innocence, or maybe my hopefulness, I said, “Then we should do something with that year. We should go somewhere, do the things you’ve always wanted to do. Make it matter.”

It made sense to me then, that we could turn that time into something beautiful. That we could squeeze joy from heartbreak.

She looked at me, and I’ll never forget the way her eyes settled on mine. “Gabby,” she said, “you’ve always seen life through rose-colored glasses.” Her voice wasn’t cruel, just tired. Honest. She explained that I had no idea what she was going through. That she was dying, really dying, and I needed to understand that. I never understood that. None if it made sense to me.

She died exactly one year later. She was 51. I’ve now lived ten years longer than she ever got the chance to.

I carried that conversation with me for decades. The memory of her words, the way she dismissed mine, and it has haunted me. I thought I’d failed her. That I’d said the wrong thing.

But now, thirty-seven years later, I sit at the bedsides of the dying every day. I am a hospice nurse and an end-of-life doula. I’ve walked with over 2,500 people to the edge of this life. I’ve listened to their stories. I’ve held their hands as they let go. And if I could go back and sit with my mom again, knowing what I know now, I would say the exact same thing.

I would still say, “Let’s make this time matter.”

No matter how heavy the diagnosis, no matter how long or short the time, we still get to choose what to do with the days we have left. We still get to love, to speak, to laugh, to cry, and to say goodbye in a way that matters. To say what we need to say. And if we are lucky, we get the chance to say we are sorry, to forgive, to make amends, and to find some kind of peace with all of it; the past, the present, and whatever comes after.

Death doesn’t wait for us to be ready. But life... life will wait for us to choose it, right until the end. So maybe I did see through rose-colored glasses, and maybe that’s not such a bad way to see someone you love, or the time they have left.

xo
Gabby

You can find this blog here:
https://www.thehospiceheart.net/post/rose-colored-glasses

08/02/2025

07/21/2025

It is in the giving the we receive!

Katharine Hepburn, in her own words:
"Once, when I was a teenager, my father and I were standing in line to buy tickets for the circus. Finally, there was only one family between us and the ticket counter. That family made a lasting impression on me.
There were eight children, all under the age of 12. From the way they were dressed, you could tell they didn’t have much money, but their clothes were clean, very clean. The children were well-behaved, standing in pairs behind their parents, holding hands.
They were so excited about the clowns, the animals, and all the acts they would see that night. From their excitement, you could tell they had never been to a circus before. It was going to be a highlight of their lives.
The father and mother stood proudly at the front of their little group. The mother was holding her husband’s hand, looking at him as if to say, 'You’re my knight in shining armor.' He was smiling, enjoying seeing his family happy.
The ticket lady asked how many tickets he wanted, and he proudly responded, 'I want eight children’s tickets and two adult tickets.' Then she announced the price.
The wife let go of her husband’s hand, her head dropped, and the man’s lip began to quiver. He leaned in closer and asked, 'How much did you say?'
The ticket lady repeated the price.
He didn’t have enough money. How was he supposed to turn around and tell his eight kids that he couldn’t afford to take them to the circus?
Seeing what was happening, my dad reached into his pocket, pulled out a $20 bill, and dropped it on the ground. We weren’t rich by any means. My father bent down, picked up the $20 bill, tapped the man on the shoulder, and said, 'Excuse me, sir, this fell out of your pocket.'
The man understood what was happening. He wasn’t being handed charity, but he gratefully accepted the help in his desperate, heartbreaking, and embarrassing situation. He looked straight into my father’s eyes, took my dad’s hand in both of his, squeezed the bill tightly, and with trembling lips and a tear streaming down his cheek, he replied, 'Thank you, sir. This really means so much to me and my family.'
My father and I went back to our car and drove home. The $20 my dad gave away was what we had planned to use for our own tickets.
Although we didn’t see the circus that night, we felt a joy inside us that was far greater than seeing the circus.
That day, I learned the true value of giving. The Giver is greater than the Receiver.
If you want to be great, greater than life itself, learn to give. Love has nothing to do with what you expect to get, only with what you expect to give—everything.
The importance of giving and blessing others cannot be overstated because there is always joy in giving. Learn to make someone happy through acts of giving."
~Katharine Hepburn

07/18/2025

Hospice takes care of people the doctors are having a difficult time fixing; people the doctors probably can’t fix. What does hospice do? Hospice helps people live with the greatest possible comfort during the limited time they have left.

It is interesting that a person who can’t be fixed, who is approaching death through disease, looks very sick and often frail in the months before their death BUT they don’t look like they are dying or at least match our idea of what a person looks like. They have probably entered the dying process in those prior months but they don’t look like they are going to die. It is only in the one to three weeks before death, that a person who is dying from a disease actually looks like they are dying.

People are generally referred to hospice in the last weeks of their life, which is way too late to help the patient and is often just crisis solving with the family.

What do you say to someone to get them to accept hospice? Well, one thing to say after explaining the services hospice offers is to ask what they think will happen if they get on hospice too soon? The answer is really a good thing---the person gets discharged from the hospice program. They have stabilized or gotten better and no longer need the guidance that hospice offers. Great! And that does happen. Not a lot, but it does happen.

Getting on the hospice program when a person’s condition is deteriorating in spite of all the treatment that is being given or has been done is accepting a different kind of medical help. It is not saying I have given up hope. It is not implying that I am dying tomorrow or next week but it is getting help that centers around family, the significant people in our circle of life that are affected. It is accepting help for ourselves as we face life with illness, often accompanied by pain, fear, and eventually death.

What is scary about that? The scary part is that everyone has to admit, on paper, that there isn’t going to be the cure everyone was praying for. People have to face the realities of life — everyone dies. Fortunately, hospice services can support and guide everyone during that scary time. Knowledge and companionship reduce fear. Hospice helps reduce the fear we all bring to end of life decisions. It takes courage to face reality and we can face reality best when we have all the facts and are not alone.

07/11/2025

To CARE for someone means something different at the City of New Bern, NC Police Department. The CARE program (Call, Answer, Respond, Empower) supports elderly citizens who may not have the ability to respond in a crisis. It provides daily check-ins by the police department to ensure the safety & well-being of participants. The program is ideal for seniors & elderly with specific medical or cognitive conditions (like dementia, mobility issues, etc.), helping them maintain their independence while providing peace of mind to their families. Need more info or want to enroll? Let us CARE for your loved one. Call (252)672-4135.

07/03/2025

About six months ago, I sat at the bedside of a woman who took her very last breath. She made me promise that I would look after her husband after she died. Once a week I meet him and we take a walk around his neighborhood. He is grieving, he is struggling, and he cries often. We talk about his wife a lot. Each week I come up with a new question that gives him the opportunity to go down memory lane and share about their life together. And I listen.

For the first five months, his dog walked with us. She was a beautiful distraction for him, and gave him purpose as he woke up each day missing his wife. About three weeks ago she started getting sick and he finally had to make the difficult decision to let her go, which broke his heart.

When I show up to his house to walk, he walks out his door, without his dog, and looks at me and cries. So now I am supporting him while he grieves his wife and his dog. His heart is just so sad. I often feel that I have a loss for words, disappointed that nothing I say will make him feel better. 

He tries to find joy in each day, he hikes with his friends, he eats well and works in his garden, but he is lonely. It is really hard to move on with your life not just grieving someone you love, but also trying to figure out who you are now that they are gone. He feels lost.

Yesterday I met him for a walk. We had moments of tears which is not abnormal, but I also felt that there was some healing happening. We laughed more than usual, and we had a wonderful conversation.

As we came around the corner to get back to his house, a neighbor was watering his garden and said hello. I was introduced, hands were shaked, and he asked my friend how he was doing. He then asked where his dog was and why she wasn’t walking with us. He told the neighbor that she had died and he started to cry.

The neighbor said this:
“Oh. Wow. I am so surprised to hear this. She was such a beautiful dog. She was like the mayor of the neighborhood and everybody loved her. I am really sorry for your loss. I know you miss her, we will all miss her. I am here if you want to talk about her. We can talk about your wife too, any time you want to.”

I could see the reaction my friend had to his kind and compassionate words. He was grateful for them, and it brought him comfort. I can’t speak for him, but it felt to me like his neighbor‘s words helped him to feel seen and acknowledged. Sometimes I wonder if he feels like he has to hide from the grief and not let anyone see that he is hurting. Adding the death of his dog to his grieving, has elevated his grief in a new way. His neighbors words were thoughtful and supportive, and something I believe my friend needed. 

Let’s all be more like his neighbor…
He saw my friend, he honored his sadness, and he offered him a safe place to talk about his wife and his dog. That was a gift, a beautiful, generous gift. 

❤️
xo
Gabby
www.thehospiceheart.net