Community Leader Chooses Early Hospice for Comfort and Peace
Dana French has a piece of advice that he says has brought him to a “comfortable” place even as he faces terminal illness: start early.
For Dana, this has applied both to living well and to his approach to hospice care, which he chose to enter not long after receiving a lung cancer diagnosis at the end of last year. Though he’s still fairly active, free of pain, and in good shape, he feels a sense of security in the weekly check-ups from his hospice nurse and the knowledge that hospice is there to make his transition as peaceful and comfortable as possible. At 88, he says, he’s lived a long and full life.
A longtime active member of the community, Dana received a Leadership Frederick County Alumni Leadership Award from the Chamber of Commerce in June. He used the opportunity during his address to share about his diagnosis and what he wishes everyone pursuing a sense of peace in life would know. The idea was sparked by a New York Times article he read, entitled “Living to Die Well,” talking about the changes and attempts to live “authentically” that people experience after receiving a terminal diagnosis. “I realized,” Dana says, “that I was at peace with the prospect of dying because I had been living fully and authentically, as the article says, for a long time.”
Dana experienced two major chapters of his career which he used to develop his unique expertise: organizational development and systems optimization. During his time in the United States Navy, he helped to pioneer its leadership development program, including the model we now know as “core competencies,” and once he settled in Frederick, he continued as a consultant for many local organizations. Early on, in 1995, he went through the Chamber’s Leadership Frederick program, and afterward was brought on to design their opening two-day retreat. He has been invaluable to what he calls the “ecosystem” of Frederick’s community groups, and has found a lot of fulfillment in that.
Like many others, Dana at first thought that hospice was something he could only consider at the very end of his life – the last couple days or weeks. However, in meeting with hospice and finding out that wasn’t the case, his attitude toward the program changed.
“After I realized I wasn’t tolerating the treatment options, I saw that hospice could help me get the most from the time I had left.” He isn’t sure how long that is, but he does know that no matter what, he has his hospice team as a support. With that assurance, he has freedom to enjoy his friends and family, and to continue the habits of a life well-lived.
