News: Making a difference on our life journey
News: Making a difference on our life journey
“ Sometimes it’s hard, sometimes it’s easy. We cry, we laugh. Often a hug is all that is needed but then often the whole day is taken up with one person who needs special attention.”
Many of you will recognise Anne who has just celebrated 50 years of nursing!
Having opened our doors just two years prior to her arrival, Anne has walked alongside and supported many families and whānau while they cared for their loved ones at the end of their life. With generous support from people like yourself, Anne has been part of the growth of the hospice in Hawke’s Bay and talks about why she chose to work in this field of nursing.
“I began working at Cranford to help support our growing family but then grew to love this threshold nursing. Our patients and their families are on their life journey like any of us. They are secure in who they are, where they are going and their place in the family. Then the diagnosis that their life is limited with no cure available so often finds them on a dark, often frightening deviation where the future as they knew it has gone and the road signs seem to be in a foreign language.
Our task is to meet these ones where they are, identify who they are, what can be done to help, and to accompany them and their families through this part of their journey.
Sometimes it’s hard, sometimes it’s easy. We cry, we laugh. Often a hug is all that is needed but then often the whole day is taken up with one person who needs special attention. When that happens, the wider team is focused together, working extremely hard to make a difference for that patient. It’s such a great feeling when that is accomplished. On these days the whole team celebrates!
I look back over the years and acknowledge the richness this work has brought to my own life. My kete is full. To share the things I carry with others, and to empower the people I have worked with gives me joy. I love my work.”
Hospice nurses, like Anne, make a real difference in the journeys of families and whanau on this new path, and they can only do so because people like you have supported hospice for over 35 years.
We are so grateful, thank you!