First month done already!

Well, that’s the first month of my placement done. The time’s flown by but I’m really pleased with everything that’s been achieved so far. I’m loving working at Strathcarron and I know already that I’ll be gutted come the end of June. Never mind; I’ll just have to make the most of every minute of the remaining 3 months! I’m really pleased with everything I’ve managed to cram in so far; I've raised a fair amount of money (with more to come) and I’m delighted that the project is making a difference to some of the patient’s lives.

One particular patient that I’ve visited several times over the course of this past week has particularly benefited from having the MP3 player by their bedside. Insomnia is a common problem but it’s one that can be improved, for some patients, by having music of their choosing on tap throughout the night. Not only has this patient been managing to sleep better, they’ve also been enjoying sharing their love of a particular type of music with some of the other patients on the ward during the day. It turns out that the little speakers, bought with some of the funds raised through the music quizzes, have been useful on the ward as well as in the private rooms!

Another patient - who finds it difficult to communicate - seems to enjoy not only listening to playlists of their favourite kind of songs, but also the time we spend using music as a catalyst to open up a dialogue.

Some of the patients who don’t particularly like music are still benefitting from having access to the music players. I’ve ripped a whole load of the hospice’s relaxation CDs onto the MP3 players and some of the patients are simply enjoying not having to change the disc in the CD player. They can listen to one CD after another without any interruptions; so, the sounds of the sea can follow seamlessly on from the sounds of the Complimentary Therapist's soft voice talking through specific relaxation techniques. A patient told me yesterday that they’d listened to over two hours of their ‘Relaxation’ playlist the previous night and had “just felt transported out of themselves for a wee while”.

Feedback such as that, to a simple “Ocht, that fair cheered me up dear!” from one of the Day Care patients (after watching a performance by a lovely group of Stirling High School pupils last week), is giving me a clear signal that the project is making a difference to some of the patients. And, now that I’ve got things properly off the ground – and most of the boring ‘preparation’ work is done – I’m thoroughly enjoying this phase of my placement. Spending a lot more time with the patients, using the therapeutic effects of music in many different ways, liaising more with the staff and starting to think more about leaving a sustainable set of practices in place when my placement’s finished are all at the very heart of what my work at the hospice is all about. And I’m just loving that work. I'm also in the throes of organising a fundraising social night, but I'm doing all of that in my own time.

I think it’s worth mentioning here that I’m just a very tiny cog in the massive wheel of everything that makes Strathcarron the special place that it is. The medical, social work, admin, fundraising, management, IT, education, physiotherapy – and many more – departments are there doing things, day in day out, that consistently make a tangible difference to patient’s lives. I’m humbled by many of these amazing people and am determined not to lose sight of the fact that my project is just one of many that have passed through the hospice’s doors over the years. Making sure that my activities in the hospice, and whatever I leave behind, work hand-in-hand with the staff and volunteers is something that I consider to be vitally important.

Something else I’m hoping to achieve with the project is to help with the building of bridges between local schools and the hospice. So, as I mentioned before, I arranged for a group of pupils from Stirling High School to come in to the Day Care unit last week to perform for a small group of elderly patients. I started with my own kids’ school, simply because I’m familiar with it (and because I know that the music department is fantastic!).  My daughter Gemma happened to be in helping out at the hospice for the first time that day (and it also happened to be the day that my Mum volunteers! It was a three generation take-over!) as she’s home on holiday from Uni at the moment. I loved that Gemma was at Strathcarron the same day that Pat Scullion, her old Head Teacher, was visiting! Pat couldn’t have been more enthusiastic about the idea of bringing pupils along to perform for patients ...and perform they did – brilliantly! Here’s just one of the many highlights:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5dHjfajFzY[/youtube]

Few of the pupils had any idea what Strathcarron is all about, and neither really did Mrs Scullion. I’ve mentioned in a previous post that it’s a challenge for the hospice movement in general to raise awareness of the fact that hospices are not dark, dreary places full of ‘people at death’s door’ (as someone rather tactlessly said to me recently). Hopefully the pupils – and their head teacher - will all have gone home that night and started to spread the word to their friends and families that the hospice is a lovely, friendly place to be. (The pupils have also seen exactly where their hard-earned fundraising money will go – which can be no bad thing for a charity which has to raise over £3.5 million each year!) In return, the patients benefitted from a feast of young talent that really did ‘fair cheer them up!’ It’s a win-win situation – and one that I’m really keen to facilitate more often. I just need to find some more hours in each day and I’ll be laughing.....!!

Here's another of the talented pupils doing his thing for the small, but extremely appreciative, audience:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CyJuix3LZ5I[/youtube]

 

So, what's it all about?

I’m aware that I’ve not really told you much about Strathcarron Hospice itself, so I guess now’s as good a time as any! For the full picture, the Strathcarron website is excellent; there’s really far too much to the hospice for me to get across in my wee blog post. Instead, this is just my very general impression of what this very special place is all about:

I grew up in Cumbernauld and the hospice was (and still is) a popular choice for fundraising events in the local community (such as sponsored walks with the Brownies or sponsored silences in class). When I was in my early twenties, I moved from Glasgow to Stirling and Strathcarron was (and still is) a popular choice for fundraising events in the local community (such as a 10k road race or a Ladies Lunch). My mum was a District Nurse and cared for many patients in the community who'd also received different forms of care from Strathcarron. My mum’s retired now, but has been volunteering at Strathcarron for over 12 years.

So, 'Strathcarron Hospice' is a name that I’ve grown up with and a name that has always been very familiar to me. But, until I started volunteering there myself – when I was in my forties – I didn’t have a Scooby what Strathcarron was actually all about! I imagined it to be a depressing, slightly eerie place - like a hospital with its lights dimmed - where people simply went off quietly to to die. And I don’t imagine that I’m the only person who’s ever imagined that about their local hospice.

Well, nothing could be further from the truth. For a start, it looks nothing like a hospital. You walk through the front door - from the gorgeous grounds - to a beautifully decorated, modern reception area and are greeted by a cheery volunteer sitting behind the desk and an even cheerier ‘employed’ receptionist. And that kind of sets the scene for everything else about Strathcarron: the staff and volunteers are warm and welcoming; the physical surroundings are light and bright; the wards and single rooms – although all geared up for the best possible patient care with some similar equipment to that which you’d find in a hospital – are cosy and homely; the patients mostly wear their clothes and not their jammies; nobody wears a white coat; and it’s probably one of the friendliest places I’ve ever had the privilege of spending time in. It provides a positively enriching environment, not only for its patients but for their families, visitors, and the staff alike.

Strathcarron is a place where adults - of all ages - with life limiting illness (such as cancer, neurological disease, respiratory and heart conditions) go, but it’s certainly not a scary place and it’s definitely not a place where people only go to to die. In fact, over 40% of patients go home from the hospice after having benefited from the specialist support, in such things as pain control and emotional distress, that Strathcarron has to offer. And, the majority of Strathcarron’s patients are treated at home or in the community. The list of services the hospice provides is endless, and best delved into on the website. I think the main point I’d like to get across is that Strathcarron offers so much more to its local community than a caring, specialist environment for its patients. It reaches out to the families of those patients and caters for their needs – be that in helping them with practical or emotional issues – it also reaches out to clinicians and other caring professions outwith the hospice environment and educates them in a vast range of topics surrounding life-limiting illness, it reaches out to schools and educates staff about the special needs of some of their pupils who might have lost someone close to them, it reaches out to Universities and local hospitals and helps with research projects and palliative care training, and it reaches out and enhances the lives of hundreds of people in the local area who benefit from all that volunteering at Strathcarron has to offer.

As the website says: “ Hospice is not a place, it is a philosophy of care that values each individual..”. Giving value to people’s lives - no matter whether they’re being treated at the Lymphodoema clinic, receiving emotional or practical support from the Patient and Family Services team, being treated at home by one of the Clinical Nurse Specialists, attending the day care hospice for specialist treatment (or just for the banter with fellow patients), benefiting from one of the many complementary therapies on offer, having improved mobility after a session with the physiotherapist, being able to go home after help from the Occupational therapist or, indeed, receiving the gentlest of palliative care in the last few days of life – that’s really what Strathcarron’s all about; valuing people’s lives. No matter what stage those people are at in their life.

Ocht, there's so much more to it than that - but I think I'll leave it at that and encourage you to check out the website for lots more information. It really is an amazing place, and I had another great day there today.

It may sound like a bit of a cliche, the old volunteer's mantra; "I'm getting lots more out of this than I'm putting in", but it really is true! Today was a case in point for me when I handed over my first music player to a patient. After spending a good bit of time last Friday, listening to them chat about their favourite music, I'd loaded up the Walkman with a bucket-load of their special songs. It was so rewarding to see the smile that spread across the patient's face this morning when they pressed 'play' and heard their favourite Scottish fiddle music drifting out through their headphones. I know it sounds like such a simple thing, but it was another lovely moment where I was lucky enough to witness my project making a bit of a difference to someone's day. And that certainly felt good!

Getting my poster just right

I'd hoped to organise a fundraising 'sit down and appreciate' concert during my placement, but I've opted instead for more of a social event; an evening of live music with a buffet and dance floor thrown in! The venue's booked (a large ballroom in a local hotel), the live music line-up's been arranged and I've made a start on asking for raffle prize donations.

So, I spent about 4 hours in front of my computer last weekend trying my best to design a poster for the event. Much of that time was spent swearing at my laptop; I'm absolutely hopeless at that kind of thing. However, I eventually produced something that resembled a poster and was so chuffed with the result that I stuck it up on our fridge door. My two eldest children were home for a visit from their respective Universities at the weekend and, as per usual on their arrival, we were all gathered in the kitchen blethering and catching up: "What d'you think then kids?", I asked my 20, 18 and 16 year olds. A very long pause was followed by "Yeh, em, it's, em, it's really good Mum. Well done!" Another long pause was followed by, "I could always give you a wee hand with it Mum..." Humph. However, a wee while later, my daughter produced this for me:

m delighted with it. Next, I need to think about designing and printing off tickets for the event........wonder if Gemma's got any free time on her hands this week....?!