Early Hospice Offers Carole Schulman a Better and More Active End-of-Life
Scott and David Schulman’s mother Carole was at first skeptical of earlier hospice because, like many in the broader community, she thought hospice only served people with days to live. Luckily for the Schulman family, Scott’s wife Gayle is a Frederick Health employee, and she readily saw how the discomfort of Carole’s advanced COPD could be eased by hospice care. Scott says that it took a month of conversations for Gayle to explain hospice’s philosophy of patient comfort and maximizing quality of life. But once the family got Carole on board, the improvement was rapid and significant.
“Before hospice care, she had been pretty much confined to her home,” Scott says. “She wasn’t able to leave without help and it was always a challenge. Hospice helped manage her pain and symptoms — soon she started to be able to leave home again independently.
She spent five to six months on hospice at home, and we’re convinced it slowed her decline.” When the time did come for more intensive care, Scott and David were deeply impressed by their mother’s experience at Kline House. “We don’t have enough good things to say about it,” David says.
They share that the “fantastic” nursing staff made the entire experience feel like home, and they were especially touched that Hospice staff would make their mother any food she wanted — including, one afternoon, short ribs. They found out about her favorite yogurt and stocked the fridge with many containers. She was able to continue her favorite pastime of reading the Frederick News Post every day, and the Kline House environment and setting made it easy and comfortable for family members to visit regularly and even spend the night.
“What we most want people to know,” David says, about their hospice experience, “is not to wait too long. So many other patients came to Kline House at the point where they couldn’t even speak or interact. Because we chose hospice early, we got to truly enjoy every last moment with our mother and lovingly say goodbye.”
Scott and David feel so passionate about their experience that they’ve enlisted their business, The Kitchen Center, for the cause. They provided in-kind help for the kitchen renovation at Kline House, purchased a tile for their mother on Kline House’s Memorial Wall, and have helped sponsor Hospice’s annual Golf Classic. Still, their greatest hope is to spread the message to others in the community: early hospice provides end-of-life comfort and connection that are priceless.
