Care and Comfort

Martha Stewart, Chair of Valley Hospice Foundation shares a photo of her Mom a month before she died.

 

“She was only 69 years old and had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer only five months earlier. It was 2002 and at that time there was no palliative care to provide support for my Dad and five siblings. She wanted to die at home so we made sure that happened but it was extremely difficult as we did not know what to expect during the days leading up to her death and then the actual death itself. My, grandmother, was devastated to have her daughter predecease her only to be diagnosed with cancer three years later in 2005. Fortunately, for everyone, a palliative care doctor had just been hired in the Annapolis Valley and made home visits which I was so grateful to attend with my grandmother. Our family had two completely different experiences with death and dying.”

The doors are now opened to the new Valley Hospice offering a new option of care.   The hospice is a place where individuals can spend their final days in a place that is homelike surrounded by the things and people that they love. It is a place where caring staff go beyond supporting a pain-free death to supporting living until the end.