If
you aren't smiling when you walk in his house just outside of
Georgetown, Ga., you will when you leave.
Christopher
has a great smile, big brown eyes, and a passion for Georgia
Bulldogs football. Christopher also has severe cerebral palsy,
a disease that leaves the 25-year-old wheelchair bound.
Christopher's mother, Mary, sensed something was wrong
with her son when he was five months old. Her baby couldn't
sit up, she said. Concerned, she took her son to Atlanta,
where he was diagnosed with his crippling disease.
"I
just broke down," said Mary, describing her reaction to the
doctors' news.
Years later in 2000, when Christopher
began having seizures, a friend suggested hospice services to
Mary. At first, Mary was wary.
"At first, I didn't
like the word 'hospice'," she said.
For, like many people, she associated hospice with death
and dying, the last things she wanted to consider for her son.
It only took a few visits from Wiregrass Hospice Volunteer
Coordinator Kim Davenport and LPN Patsy Gayler, however, to
win Mary over.
"They didn't let me down when I needed
them," said Mary. "They were my ray of
sunshine."
Hospice workers were on call day and night
during the darkest days of Christopher's illness. Mary
recalled nights when her son would have terrible fevers.
Hospice staff would visit in the middle of the night to ease
both Christopher and Mary.
Davenport, Gayler and
Chaplain Tim Stevenson also simply dropped by the Warrens'
house for "friendly visits." As with all their patients and
patients' families, the workers offered not only medical care
to Christopher, but education, comfort, spiritual support and
hope to his mother.
Gayler said these are all ways of
establishing a bond with the patients and families they are
working with. But growing so close to a terminally ill patient
has its drawbacks.
"Sometimes we feel we've lost 10
grandfathers," said Gayler, speaking of the many patients she
and her co-workers have seen pass. "It's very draining, but
emotionally rewarding."
Happily, Christopher is not
among the hospice patients who have passed away during
Gayler's eight year career. Seizure-free for four years,
Christopher was recently discharged from the hospice program.
Davenport said discharging a living patient is a time
for celebration for both the patient's immediate family and
his or her extended hospice family. And it's hard to tell who
Christopher's true relatives are and who are not as he, his
mother, Gayler, Davenport, Stevenson and Wiregrass Hospice
Account Executive Kyle Dyer mill around in the Warrens' living
room chatting and exchanging hugs.
They look like one
happy family.
Christopher's triumph is especially
poignant this time of year. During this holiday season, he and
mother Mary have a lot to be thankful for. His hospice family
is thankful too that Christopher's health is showing no
significant decline.
"It doesn't always end in end of
life," said Stevenson.
Dyer recently penned a poem
about Hospice's impact on families titled, "The Heart That
Gives Back." The first stanza reads:
Embodying the
soul of an angel Caring for each so compassionate and
true Grateful for the service Fortunate to have
you
When asked if Christopher, his mother and their
hospice friends have a message for the holiday season,
Davenport summed up all of her friends' feelings by saying
simply, "Don't put off saying 'I love you'."
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