Move to hospice (email sent 2/4/11)

Barbara has asked me to post onto her blog several emails I've sent to my own list of Barbara 'fans' over the past month. Here's the second one.... Laurel

Barbara has decided, together with Van and her terrific medical team at Kaiser, to change her treatment approach from chemotherapy to hospice. The chemo has lost efficacy, and stronger chemo would have increasingly bad side effects, without significant probability of success. Kaiser's hospice services will come in Saturday to help with setup; Sunday she and Van will hang out with family and watch the Super Bowl :)

She wants us to understand several key points:
• Hospice is a treatment, and it actually has the same goal as the chemo has had. That goal is to extend the quality of her life as much as possible, and especially to keep her as comfortable as possible. They are just changing the approach toward achieving that goal. As Barbara says, she's known for a long time that curing her cancer was not the goal.
• Hospice doesn't mean that she feels she has very limited time left, so she doesn't want everyone to panic. She just wants to change treatments. Barbara understands that tremendous strides have been made in the past 10 years in pain management, and she sees this as a positive change. "Exciting new adventure" is what she called it!

More delightful and comforting words from Barbara: "Reassurances have taken away all the tension. I have decided to surrender. This is going to be the most wonderful 6 months."

Will keep you posted.....
Laurel