The "hospice team" made an initial visit with us 9 days ago. Five minutes after coming through the door, the social worker said she could "help with funeral arrangements." Who asked her? Where did she get off bringing that up? Hospice in this country has become a cult of death. Their outlook is: "We're not afraid of death and neither should you be." So they try to introduce "death" into the conversation to show how natural they regard it and how brave and unshaken they are in the face of it. Easy to be that way when it's not you, or someone you love, who is dying. My bf knows he is dying, and he's quite brave about it, but he doesn't need his face rubbed in it by these creeps. They want to discuss "his bucket list" and "his goals" and his religious beliefs. I felt like saying, "None of your d*** business."

I engaged the services of the hospice provider in the hopes that they might have knowledge of how to relieve respiratory distress. We are not interested in all this other intrusive, presumptuous "stuff." I'm certainly not interested in discussing the afterlife with a "chaplain-for-hire." They give you a pamphlet describing the dying precess in excruciating detail. The booklet tells how the dying person is simply going to "another city" to join up with those who have "gone before," who will be happily awaiting to welcome the new member to their ranks. It's "new-age spirituality," a generic religion that seeks to reassure all and offend no one. Hospice, as it is thus practiced, hasn't much to offer as a medical specialty . . . so they throw in all this "holistic" stuff to try and fluff out the meagerness of what they have to offer, medically. Their medical interventions seem to boil down to morphine, Ativan and Haldol. Yes . . . Haldol! Reminds me of how they sedate and chemically paralyze a prisoner being executed . . . so that the execution will be less disturbing for those who witness it.

This is all about Medicare trying to reduce spending on the elderly. It's an attempt to bribe the dying and their families. "Give up expensive hospital visits, and we'll pull out all the stops on making the dying person "comfortable." The word "comfort" is thrown around ad nauseum. Who doesn't want that? But it's a false dichotomy . . . a false choice. Doctors working for hospice agencies don't have access to special secrets unknown to the rest of the medical profession. It's a scam. Whoever figures out how to guarantee dying comfortably will win a Nobel Peace Prize. No one's been nominated for that yet. No one's figured that out yet.

Because he's a veteran, my s.o. can pursue getting expensive immunotherapy cancer treatment, paid for by the VA, while simultaneously being a client of hospice. (Non-veterans must choose one or the other.) So I am getting every resource for him. But hospital doctors resent us doing that.