February 2023 by Manda C.
To a certain extent, this review has haunted me. By that, I mean I've written it in my head multiple times in the middle of the night, I've started it over several times because it was not possible to include the names of each and every wonderful person and the service each of them provided and how they profoundly impacted the life of my family. There just aren't enough characters available in a review to tell you how important this service is or how each of us was changed by it. So for months it's been sitting in my drafts, but I finally decided to rewrite this review and try to make it as informational as possible.It started back in the hospital when the hospital arranged for us to talk to representatives from several hospices. Hospice Brazos Valley sent out a woman from the Bryan office who was lovely and respectful to my father and answered all my family's questions. She provided us with their book that ended up being a very useful guide that I read through several times, got our contact information and arrangements were made very quickly to have my father transferred back home by ambulance the next day.I was contacted by Wilbea Medical Equipment (through hospice), who came out and set up everything we needed before my father was discharged and trained me on how to use all the medical equipment. They were also patient as I took notes and repeated things so I could also train my other family members in how to operate the equipment as well. Honestly, they thought of everything. Several hours after my father was home, an intake nurse came and explained the process to us, made sure we had contact information, signs to post outside for having certain equipment and oxygen on site, another copy of their guide and literally went through every service and every question we could possibly have. My mother and I were also trained in how to administer medications we hadn't seen outside of the hospital before.We were given a schedule for nurses and home health aides to come out and care for my father and train us how to care for him between visits. As he rapidly declined, they quickly adapted to a more frequent schedule without us having to ask or advocate for his needs. They brought everything we needed as we needed it, including ways to administer medications when my father could no longer swallow. They were gentle with both my father and my family, and I do believe a community based organization like Hospice Brazos Valley has to be the definition of angels walking among us.This entire process didn't cost my family anything, which was hard to wrap my head around as everything had cost so much the prior 9 months. So it was fascinating to suddenly have supplies being provided if we ran low and not having to argue with offices over bills or coverage or make another run to Walgreens. The guide had so much information, I was glad to have my own copy to read in the middle of the night by my father's hospital bed. It included contact information for all their locations, a thorough breakdown of all the stages of hospice, how your loved one transitions and what each one means. It also contained a list of tasks to help get your loved one's affairs in orders, a page of local contacts for funeral homes, contact and explanations of home health aides and what they do, contacts for volunteers who could sit with your loved one if you had an appointment to attend, bereavement counselling and so much more. It was the most useful, tangible thing I held during the entirety of 2022 and I can't even explain to you how many resources I researched during that year once my father was diagnosed in early January.Their contact phone number handled everything, they even had stickers to put around the house so nobody would panic and not know who to call. When we had to first administer morphine, when we needed a message sent to a nurse, when we had a question about a service, it was the same number for all of it and the staff on the phone was equally as amazing as the staff that I dealt with in person. This i
