Patient Stories

Like many people, prior to my parents’ experience with hospice, I knew very little about it. I wondered if hospice meant “giving up.” I realize now that it is the exact opposite: it is taking back—taking back control of ...

Larry Stambaugh made it clear to his family and friends that he wanted to spend his last days in the home he built with his own hands on a mountaintop in Emmitsburg 40 years ago. When Frederick Health Hospice began serving Larry, wintery conditions ...

As a life-long educator, Garnet Lynch spent her career teaching children in Frederick County Public Schools for more than 30 years. So it should come as no surprise that her passing provides a lesson to others on how hospice cares for the ...

The month of June 2020 was a blur for Lauren Nolke. Not only was this working mother of two doing her best to manage the “new normal” thrust upon her by the escalating COVID-19 pandemic, she had just learned that her beloved father, ...

I’ve wanted to be a lot of different things in my life, but I neither wanted nor expected to be an expert on cancer. However, during my late wife Marcia’s battle with the disease, we came to understand cancer far too well. We learned that ...

Through a partnership with the Frederick Police Department’s Victims Services Unit and the County Health Department, Hospice launched its Overdose Survivor Outreach Program to bring care, comfort and support to the families and friends of ...

Many of us can relate to that feeling of coming across a letter, photo, or other memento that keeps us connected to a special person, place, or time in our lives. To hear a loved one’s voice, read their handwriting, or see their smile in a ...

George Comert was determined to live independently forever, but that was not to be. As his health declined, he grew weaker and less steady on his feet. After a bad fall, even he had to agree the time had come to move in with his daughter, Lynn Besch, ...

Mother’s Day. A day of celebrating the wonderful women in our lives we call “mom.” But for some of us this can feel like a dreaded day. There are many reasons this day can feel impossibly heavy. Maybe you lost your mother, maybe you ...

On his first day of Kindergarten in 1995, Derick Ogg came home to the news that his beloved father had died. Now 32 years old, Derick vividly recalls how he felt at the time-- numb, devastated and completely alone. Who was he now without his father ...