THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, February 4, 1996 TAG: 9602020199
SECTION: CHESAPEAKE CLIPPER PAGE: 16 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY SUSAN W. SMITH, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 183 lines
TALL AND BROAD-shouldered, 78-year-old Clarence E. Drumheller has almost always had a plan for life.
As a young man, Drumheller first joined the Navy and later served in the Air Force as a chaplain.
He has been an author, farmer, teacher, pastor and a circuit-riding preacher in Montana.
He taught English at Indian River and Deep Creek high schools for 10 years, and ministered occasionally at area United Methodist churches such as Oak Grove, Good Hope, Hickory and St. Paul's.
He has been a husband, a father, a widower and a bridegroom again at the age of 62.
Now he is making plans for the end of his life, as a patient of Chesapeake General's ComfortCare Hospice program. Drumheller is dying of Parkinson's disease and Shy-Drager Syndrome, both disorders that attack the neurological system.
The hospice program, established in September, helps families like the Drumhellers cope with terminal illnesses. The program provides in-home nursing care, counseling and support. Children's Hospital of The King's Daughters in Norfolk has a similar hospice care program for children and teenagers.
The goal is to allow people to die at home with their families, with dignity.
``It's important that doctors recognize when to change treatment from curative measures to comfortable assistance for the patient,'' said Tracy Clymer, community liaison for Chesapeake General's ComfortCare Health Services, which also offers services such as maternal and newborn care and diabetes management.
Drumheller and his wife, Geneva, entered the hospice program in September. Now he spends his days propped up in a hospital bed at home as he directs and plans his remaining time.
He's surrounded by his well-worn books, needlepoint pictures and stained-glass angels. Through the picture window in the family room where his bed is set up, he can see his tree farm and numerous birdhouses.
Drumheller and his wife talked with their doctors and met with Louise Ross, the director of ComfortCare Hospice, before deciding to join the program.
``It was a beautiful decision that we made together,'' Geneva Drumheller said.
They believed the program would allow them to spend the last months together at home, with medical care for comfort and with the dignity and peace that is important to both of them.
In 1968, the first modern hospice began in England. In 1974, the first American hospice opened in Connecticut, where patients were admitted to a home-like center for their last days.
Now there are about 1,800 hospices in the United States. Many centers, like Chesapeake's, offer care in patients' homes.
Dr. Craig Franzman is the medical director for ComfortCare Hospice, and must approve each family admitted to the program.
Nurses, social workers, physical therapists, aides, clergy and volunteers make up the staff.
Patients must be referred by physicians. Since last fall, eight families have entered the program. Hospice care directors have not set a limit on how many families they can serve at one time.
Program director Ross makes the initial visit to the patient's home to talk to the family. Patients and their families have to accept that they are facing a life-ending illness and have six months or less to live.
They sign consent forms and insurance papers similar to hospital forms. Most also sign a ``do not resuscitate'' order, requesting that doctors or paramedics not make heroic efforts to save them.
Franzman said a family's personal physician is urged to remain as the patient's primary doctor. The hospice nurses report back to each patient's doctor and discuss medication and care.
Volunteers and trained staff are required to participate in 25 hours of training. Their services are not to take the place of care by the family or the patient's personal physician, but to assist and support them.
Hospice staff members visit patients by appointment, but families have a 24-hour number for information and emergencies. A nurse is always on call.
``We are here to care for the whole person,'' Ross said. ``We not only tend to the physical discomfort, but we try to assist the spiritual needs and the emotional stress which is involved. The emphasis is on the patient and the family, not the disease.''
The Drumhellers view hospice staff members such as Nancy Malone, Charlotte Truxillo, Stephanie Kennedy, Rita Copeland, Leigh Nielsen, the Rev. Ramon M. Owens Jr. and Peggy Rydeen as part of their family. Some visit the Drumhellers' home every day; some just as needed.
On a recent visit, nurse Malone took Drumheller's blood pressure and temperature. The two talked about fluid intake, his voracious appetite and the bag of chocolate goodies that hung from the bed rail. Drumheller claimed the candies were for medicinal purposes.
Malone made a note to call the physician to ask about increasing certain medications. Then they talked like old friends about books, birds, Drumheller's tree farm and his cat, Amazing Grace.
Malone explained that the hospice program's goal is to keep patients pain-free but alert, so they can enjoy the quality of each day.
Patients are treated with medication to control pain and other symptoms like nausea, diarrhea, sleeplessness or disorientation. The treatment is not for cure, but for comfort.
Kennedy, an aide, arrives each day to help with the bath and fresh linens. Sometimes she sits for a while as Drumheller reads the Bible and they share thoughts.
Copeland and Nielsen, physical therapists, visit at different times to exercise his sore muscles, rub his tired back and stretch his cramped legs.
Peggy Rydeen, a retired school principal, is the volunteer assigned to the Drumhellers. But she has become a friend.
Recently, she and Geneva sipped coffee as they discussed funeral arrangements. She's already helped Drumheller pick out hymns and Scripture readings for his own service. Rydeen even takes notes for meditation pieces that Drumheller hopes to have published. He's still busy making plans.
``I'm also here for Geneva to unload on or to give her a chance to slip out of the house for awhile,'' said Rydeen, who is a former Virginia Beach hospice volunteer and was one of the first to sign on with ComfortCare.
Malone, Kennedy, Copeland, Nielsen and Rydeen don't leave without getting a hug from both the Drumhellers and promising to be back.
Owens stops by frequently, sometimes to pray, but most often to discuss philosophies, television evangelism, the military and what's going on in the community.
``Sometimes I think that our visits are more beneficial to me,'' said Owens, a minister at Great Bridge Baptist Church and a clergy volunteer for the hospice program.
``Besides medical attention, we learn to become great listeners, as families work through conflicts, hopefully resolve unsettled issues and deal with forgiveness or unfinished business,'' Ross said. ``We also frequently see that the patient is ahead of the rest of the family in accepting death.''
The entire staff meets every Wednesday morning to review each family's case and to recommend treatment or changes.
``Most of the time we ask ourselves what can we do better for this person,'' Malone said.
Malone's father died alone in the hospital, she said. That incident helped steer her into nursing and later led her to hospice care.
Ernest L. and Christine W. Priest are another hospice family. Ernest, 70, retired from the Navy and the shipyard, now has stomach and liver cancer.
Franzman, his doctor, recommended the hospice program to him in January.
He suggested that Priest consider the program while he still felt good and could make decisions for himself. That way, once he became ill, he would already know his caretakers and would have an extra sense of comfort.
One of the first things Malone did to help Priest and his wife was to send a video camera out West to some of the family's relatives. The camera was used to tape great-grandchildren the couple had never seen. Priest wanted to lay eyes on them before he died.
On Tuesday when Malone visited Priest, he was in bed with a slight fever. On her last visit, Priest had been walking around, watching television and waiting for lunch.
``He's not doing so good today,'' Christine Priest said. ``He's a strong, proud and quiet man. He doesn't like to ask for help. But we are truly blessed that so many kind people have surrounded us. They're like people we had known all our life.''
Malone patted Priest's hand and gently asked if there was anything he wanted to talk about.
Priest thought about it for a minute and then shook his head.
``No, I don't have anything to say,'' he said. ``Do you?''
Malone reminded Christine that it was all right to get upset, and that it was time to consider final plans. Priest wanted to be cremated, with his ashes scattered at sea. Christine had envisioned them lying next to each other in burial. But she said they would work it out somehow.
``We've been together for 41 years,'' Christine said. ``We'll make this journey together, too.'' MEMO: More information about ComfortCare Hospice is available by calling
547-9541.
ILLUSTRATION: Staff photos by MORT FRYMAN
Christine W. Priest comforts her husband Ernest, 70, who retired
from the Navy and shipyard, but now has stomach and liver cancer.
Geneva Drumheller struggles with her emotions while talking with
Nancy Malone.
Nancy Malone talks with Christine Priest, married to Ernest for 41
years.
Members of Hospice program meet. They are, from left: Charlotte
Truxillo, Louise Ross, Nancy Malone, Dr. Craig Franzman and Aurora
Cruz.
Clarence Drumheller is surrounded by the Rev. Ramon Owens, physical
therapist Leigh Nielsen, nurse Nancy Malone and Peggy Rydeen.
by CNB