Tender
Loving Care
United Way program helps West Mansfield couple to celebrate
their 55th wedding anniversary
18 July 2010
Dallas Dowell remembers his first date with his wife Eloise nearly six decades ago. The couple
went boating with friends to explore a new dam being built in Columbus. He couldn’t have imagined then that he
would be her life preserver 57 years later.
|
“I didn’t know what to do anymore,” Dallas said. “We would go to the emergency room, then back home, then back down to the doctor’s office. It was like “ring-around-the-rosy” there, sometimes two or three times a week. She was in such bad shape. She couldn’t eat. She couldn’t drink. About the only thing she could do was smile.”
The mother of two, grandmother of 12, and former Union County auditor was dying.
“And then Miriam showed up,” Dallas said.
Miriam Miller is an RN with Loving Care Hospice. She was assigned to the Dowells in February 2009 when the family
doctor contacted the United Way Member Agency to help. She would make two or three in-home visits to administer
care to Eloise each week when she developed a heart-felt relationship with the couple.
“All of us in the office are in awe of Dallas,” said Miller. “He would literally crawl on his knees a hundred miles for Eloise. But he really, really struggled when it looked like she was going to die last summer.”
In fact, 98% of all hospice patients do pass away within several months. But in this rare and joyful case, something different happened. Over the first few months, Miller tried different methods to care for Eloise’s ills. In September, Eloise started to turn around. “
She told me, ‘I just decided to get better,’” Dallas said.
Incredibly, treatment turned to therapy as Eloise gradually recovered from her life-threatening illness to the point that she is no longer on Hospice care. Doctors haven’t been able to explain the miracle, telling Dallas that “you just don’t get better from this,” and Miller attributes it to “a God-thing.” On nice summer days, Dallas takes her outside to tend to her raised bed garden in the backyard. In the evening, the couple plays cards together – and Eloise wins! Miller still makes visits out to the couple’s West Mansfield home to visit friends she’s made on the job. And the couple will celebrate their 55th wedding anniversary this fall.
“When we sign a patient up with Hospice, we tell them that we are there to walk that journey with them,” Miller said. “It’s a hard journey to walk by yourself. And we walk that journey with them. So many times, they just need somebody to talk to. To say what they’re worried about. The care we do is big. But it’s having somebody to call, we’re on call 24/7 and they can call us.”
“Hospice just took a burden I was carrying off of me,” Dallas said. “I knew that somebody was going to be there to take care of her.”
All Loving Care Hospice services are available regardless of the patient’s ability to pay. United Way funding helps to make up the difference. The benefits of Loving Care Hospice are:·
- The patient is cared for at home.·
- The patient and family make the decisions about care.
- The Hospice medical director can assist the patient's physician by making house calls when needed.
- Nurses are on-call 24 hours a day, seven days a week.·
- Many types of family support services are available at no cost. Bereavement services are provided to each family following the patient's death and can continue for one year.
For more information about Loving Care Hospice, please click here: http://www.unitedwayofunioncounty.org/agencies/LovingCareHospice.shtml