A Final Wish Come True

Hospice helps a local family

Jahna Haldeman Foland was just 26 when she was diagnosed with a rare form of lung cancer. She was newly wed and starting what promised to be a successful career in the United States Air Force. After a short period of aggressive medical treatment, her life ended much too soon…but not before her last wish was fulfilled.

Jahna knew she was dying. “She didn’t want to lie in a hospital thousands of miles from home,” says Sandra Haldeman of Allentown, Jahna’s mother. “Her final goal in this journey was to die in the home she grew up in, surrounded by her family and friends.”

As a nurse, Sandra knew the family could care for Jahna. But wanting “to make
sure her final days were pain-free and filled with comfort and peace,” she contacted Lehigh Valley Hospice. The service provides support and care for patients who are no longer responding to medical treatment.

The goal of the hospice staff is to control pain, reduce anxiety and offer spiritual and emotional support to patients and their families—whether in the home or in a hospice facility or nursing home. “As people begin their end-of-life journey, we do all we can to prevent them from suffering,” says Bruce Ellsweig, M.D., medical director of Lehigh Valley Hospice.

The team first reduces or eliminates the patient’s physical pain by administering and adjusting pain medications as needed. Next, social workers provide counseling and support to help patients deal with the emotional aspects of dying. “Often, we guide people through an end-of-life review of all they’ve accomplished and contributed,” Ellsweig says. “It’s a way to put them at peace knowing the legacy they’ve left behind.”

Spiritual counselors listen and ask questions—but don’t preach— as patients explore their feelings of devotion. The hospice team even uses a variety of complementary medicine techniques to help reduce distress. “Above all,
we listen to our patients and families. No request should be too much when we are dealing with preserving someone’s dignity and grace,” Ellsweig says.

Right from the start, the hospice staff worked to make Jahna physically comfortable. As her condition worsened, her pain grew so severe that oral medications no longer helped. Eventually she was put under conscious sedation, a treatment typically administered in the hospital. Because they wanted to honor her final wish, Jahna’s mother and sister, Leahna Haldeman (also a nurse), asked that they be allowed to handle her sedation at home. The treatment requires a high level of monitoring, so the request was unconventional, Ellsweig says. But he honored it, inspired by the family’s courage, love and support for Jahna.

“When the time came in her journey,” Sandra says, “thanks to hospice, she was right where she wished to be.”

Published from Healthy You Magazine, September October 2010

This page last updated 8/19/10 04:09 PM