Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, June 26, 1990 TAG: 9006270367
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: SU CLAUSON SPECIAL TO THE ROANOKE TIMES & WORLD-NEWS
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Long
Her glance travels over the library of material on death and dying, the file containing the names of hundreds of clients she has served, the chair where she sat as she comforted grieving families. She smiles affectionately, as if looking at a sleeping child.
"It's time for a graduation," she says. "An organization can't always have a mother. It's time I moved on and someone else took over."
Although she is stepping down, Massie is not deserting. She will still put in about 10 hours a week writing grants, doing policy analysis and assisting with Medicare certification and licensing requirements. But her main focus these days will be on her Ph.D work in public administration at Virginia Tech.
For many New River Valley residents, Cindy Massie was the hospice. Since she first responded in 1980 to a television ad for Make Today Count, a support group for the terminally ill, and ended up organizing the hospice, Massie has worked tirelessly to provide services for dying clients and their families.
"Let's say it called on something within me," she said. "I know what it's like to be alone. I know that others can help in addressing this loneliness that those facing death experience."
At first, as chairwoman of the fledgling hospice's board, she worked as a volunteer. Then when an advertisement for the part-time director's position read like a copy of her resume ("health or nursing background, experience working with volunteers, familiarity with hospice concept and knowledge of education and public relations"), she applied for it and was hired as the hospice's first paid employee.
"It was supposed to be a part-time job," said Massie, the mother of two. "When it became full-time, my husband joked that he didn't know if he wanted me to take it because half-time was already 80 hours a week."
"I personally don't think the New River Valley Hospice would be here without Cindy Massie," said S.L. Kalison, a hospice board member. "A group of us here tried to start a hospice earlier, but when Cindy joined she gave the group impetus. She took the time to organize us."
Hard work is nothing new for Massie, who has led the nursing department at New River Community College, helped Radford University organize its nursing school and run a photography business with her husband.
Besides, she said, whenever she needed recharging, she'd go out to visit terminally ill patients.
"They're lifegiving," she said. "I carry a number of our people around in me. Sometimes when I'm talking to one of the patients, something a former client said will come to me, and it will be just right."
When friends of the terminally ill sit in her office, nervously wringing damp handkerchiefs as they describe their inability to talk to the dying, the words come to her. "It's all right," Massie says. "Just tell them you're nervous and you don't know what to say. They'll help you. They know you're there because you care."
Listen to those who are dying, Massie says. Let them sum up their lives and validate them. To ignore an impending death is to leave the dying person more alone than they have ever been in their lives.
"Patients can tell whether you are able to deal with death or not," Massie said. "If you only want to talk about flowers and what you will do next year [when they are not around], they know you don't want to talk about their reality."
Although as a nurse, Massie has dealt with dying patients much of her adult life, she says the hospice really taught her how to communicate with them.
"They are such dears," she says. "I remember visiting one of our first patients on a windy day. I was so concerned that she would think I hadn't bothered to brush my hair before visiting that I started apologizing as soon as she opened the door. `Goodness, I wish I had that problem,' she said. She was wearing a scarf because chemotherapy had made her hair fall out. We both laughed."
Massie became sensitive to grief issues when she worked as a staff nurse on the pediatrics ward at the University of Virginia Medical Center in Charlottesville. The children there were often so ill they would die within days or hours of entering the ward. Some would die without ever knowing the seriousness of their condition, because parents often asked the staff not to talk about the disease. The family usually were no better prepared for death than their children were.
"It gave me an empty feeling," Massie said. "I felt so sad watching the parents of a child who had just died walk down that hall without their son, without anyone to help them with their grief. I did what I could, but I was sometimes the only nurse covering a ward of critically ill children."
The hospice attempts to ease the burden of dying patients and their families. A nurse, a doctor, a social worker, hospice home-care volunteers and sometimes a dietician and a member of the clergy meet voluntarily to discuss the needs of each patient. Lawyers have even donated time to help patients draw up wills. "Only at hospice do you find lawyers making house calls," Massie joked.
Hospice also runs Make Today County, a group that supports the bereaved and provides educational services for groups and individuals seeking understanding about the terminally ill, in addition to serving a dozen or more patients.
Hospice services are available to anyone who has been given a prognosis of six months or less to live, has a primary caretaker and lives in the New River Valley. The most common diagnosis is cancer, although patients with many other illnesses have been served. The hospice nurse is a member of the New River Valley AIDS Task Force and hopes to work closely with that group as the need arises.
Massie is attempting to develop a stress-reduction or grief group for hospice volunteers. "I am vulnerable to grief," says Massie. "All of us at the hospice are constantly in some degree of bereavement. We form attachments with our clients. We heal; we grieve and we carry on."
Still, she says, it's an honor to associate with someone who's dying. "They have limited time and limited energy. They have to be very selective of who they spend it with. I feel lucky when they share that time with me."
"We will all die," she says. "But they have a better idea of how and when. Their perspective helps us all appreciate the life we have."
by CNB