On Saturday morning I arrived at the nursing home which I was going to be volunteering at. I had to go through a brief training session, which basically explained to me what was acceptable/unacceptable to talk to these patients about, what I should expect, and some general information about the patients that I would be encountering. The typical patient that is put on hospice is expected to live 6 more months or less. The first patient that I visited and talked with was an elderly woman who was very friendly and glad to see me. I learned that she was not diagnosed with anything specific; she was just dying of old age. In other words, her body was just giving out after having worked so hard for so long. In my training I learned that when patients are dying of old age an obvious sign that they are slipping is that they stop drinking and their body produces very little urine and it is not diluted at all. The lady that I was talking with told me that she had suffered from 3 minor strokes within the last month, which made it a little bit hard to understand her but I was able to make out what she was saying after I got used to it. It was disheartening to think that this nice old woman may die before the next time I get to see her.
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Wow, not to be mean or anything but that sounds quite depressing. It is nice that you are able to go an visit the elderly though, I am sure they appreciate it very much. Given the setting that your are volunteering in I am sure that you will learn plenty about life threatening illnesses and the effect of old age on the body.
A nursing home was a very good idea for a service learning project because visiting those older people really does make a difference in the community because it makes them so happy. What a sad thing to think about the fact that most people in a hospice are expected only to live for 6 months or less. But this is also a very sad project because just as you said you might have to deal with the death of someone before you are done with this project.
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