Excerpt:
My mom died four months ago. Did I mention my Mom died four months ago? I was with her in the last two weeks of her life while she was on hospice. When I say on hospice, I want to be clear the term hospice does not mean all-encompassing care by an outside agency while the loved ones hold the dying person’s hand and reminisce glowingly about a life well-lived.
Hospice care is covered under Medicare with it paying an average of $153 per day, per person, in 2016 to cover hospice care. Hospice care is focused around keeping the patient at home, and with the understanding the patient will be kept comfortable but is no longer pursuing life-saving interventions to stave off the inevitable. Hospice aims to keep the patient comfortable (with lots of anti-anxiety drugs and powerful opiates).
The inevitable, and as many have said, is that we all die, so we might as well be as comfortable as we can be in the event of this. Death. The event.