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SMHS senior purchases needed equipment for Hospice program

By Rose Hooper
Sylva's Hospice Through a bake sale, yard sale and solicitations from Harold's Supermarket where she works, Smoky Mountain High School senior Amanda Morgan, left, raised enough money to purchase a portable finger pulse oximeter and three stethoscopes for Hospice. Judy Fashings, right, volunteer coordinator for Sylva's Hospice, sparked Morgan's interest in the program that provides services for the terminally ill who have a life expectancy of six months or less. Before Judy Fashings came into her life, Amanda Morgan did not know anything about Hospice. In fact, Morgan didn't even know what the word meant.

But Fashings, volunteer coordinator for Sylva's Hospice, spoke to Morgan's Allied Health Science II class at Smoky Mountain High School and changed the senior's life forever.

Hospice, Morgan learned, is a care plan for the terminally ill who have a life expectancy of six months or less. In working with Fashings on her senior class project, Morgan discovered that Hospice considers death not as an ending, but as a journey. Death is treated with dignity, and family members participate in the caregiving process.

"I wanted to go into some field of nursing. But I wasn't sure what field.

After my experience with Hospice, I know that's not for me," said Morgan, who found it difficult to deal with the loss of the patient she visited with Fashings.

"I cried after each visit. You get so attached and then the person is gone," she said about her first experience with dying.

Fashings taught her the stages of death, the first of which is the "no, not me" stage, followed by bargaining, such as "God, I will quit smoking if you give me a second chance." Then comes anger or the "why me?" stage where the patient sees his dying as unfair. Depression can then set in. Acceptance is another stage, and hope is the final stage, such as "I hope my granddaughter will be born before I die."

Hospice impacted Morgan so strongly that she knew she wanted to contribute to the program, even though she couldn't do it on a day-to-day personal level. So she asked what Hospice really needed, and Fashings told her a portable finger pulse oximeter.

The device is used to measure a person's oxygen level and is critical for patients with breathing difficulties. Even though it's tiny, the cost is great. Hospice nurses shared one oximeter with Home Health nurses ­ until it broke and then both agencies really felt the loss.

"Amanda was just super," said Fashings. "She held a yard sale and bake sale and solicited donations at Harold's Supermarket where she works. She not only raised enough money to buy the oximeter, but she had enough left over and bought three stethoscopes for our nurses. It's wonderful to have these new pieces of equipment to better serve the community."

Morgan said her encounter with death convinced her to "live every day to its fullest."

"I put myself more into what I do now," said this daughter of Danny and Pam Morgan of Hidden Valley Road.

Throughout her Hospice experience, Morgan maintained her sense of humor.

"Death may be a tragic time, but on the lighter side, Woody Allen once quipped, ŒOn the plus side, death is one of the few things that can be done just as easily lying down,'" Morgan said.

Back to Archive: 02/07/02.