Clarion 1987-10-30 Vol. 63 No. 05

              Iearwng resource CEN10
BETHEL COLLEGE
39Q0 Bethel Drive
St. Paul, Minnesota 55112
CLARION
30 October 1987
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Bethel College
St. Paul, Minnesota
Bethel grad finds dignity at hospice
by Sarah Cole
A few weeks ago, a nurse asked a social
worker to help move a patient, "Mary," in
her bed. Mary was rather skinny and kind
of groggy. She resembled a bloated baby.
Mary's daughter and grandson stood
aside and watched Mary as she was
scooted further up on the bed, pillows
propped up behind her back. She was
very weak, but still alert. She wasn't dying
quickly, just slowly deteriorating. Mary
has cancer and is one of ten terminally ill
patients on the hospice unit at St. Joseph's
Hospital in St. Paul.
Paula Miller, a 1987 Bethel graduate, is
that social worker and works mostly with
cancer patients. "What we see, more
often than not, is that they get weaker and
weaker and more tired and the world gets
smaller and they just slip away. I would
say that it happens that way 99 percent of
the time," she said.
"We have a lot of Christian patients and
just like any other Christian they don't
have it all together—especially when it
comes to death." She attributes that to
her observation that most churches don't
deal directly with death.
Miller said that a hospice isn't so much a
place to die as it is a concept of care which
revolves around the idea that since there
is no longer a successful treatment available, patients want to experience a quality
of life before they die. "Just because they
are sick and dying doesn't mean life has to
stop," said Miller. Hospice care is a very
personal, "hands-on" type of care and is
still relevant today although jobs are fast-
paced and health care has changed so
much, she said. "It brings back dignity and
humanity to what oftentimes health care
has distorted. They try to prolong and
prolong. Hospice care brings the dying
process back to the basics—the simplicity
of how people used to die," Miller said.
"It's not hard to die," she said. "What is
hard is to live until you die." Miller explained that while it is hard for patients to
live physically, it's simple because it
comes down to their basic needs, desires
and wants. "We tell them to live day to
day because that is the only way they can
live. We don't know how they're going to
be tomorrow. They may get better or they
may get worse." Yet, Miller said, patients
often quit living.
Miller has respect for those who have the
will to live fully until the last minute—the
will to live a life of quality the best they
can. "The people who do that have it right
with God. They're okay. They aren't running. They know they are dying and that's
not going to stop them." Miller said that
there are never going to be perfect
patients or families and each individual in
the family deals with death in a different
way. She finds that the patients deal with
death peacefully and, in the long run, the
family does too.
Miller tells families that while patients are
alert and responsive, each individual
needs to "do the things they need to do"
because there will be a day when the
loved one isn't that way and they don't
want to wait until then. "It's a process and
as they start to do that they start to let
go," she said.
Families are encouraged to take out
photo albums and reminisce and review
the good and bad times in life. Miller said
that she sees pictures of patients when
they were "in their prime" a$id how beautiful they were, but she didn t know them
then and thinks they are beautiful the way
they are.
Why do patients elect to come to a hospice unit for care instead of at home?
"Some people don't have a family," Miller
explained. "Some families are scared.
They've never experienced death and
don't know how to deal with it. Some
want the security of knowing that there
won't be much pain and some don't want
the memory of a death occuring at
home."
Being on a hospice unit, Miller said, is like
being a birthing coach because it is helping people go through a new experience
with pride and  dignity—helping them
Extra room years away
Community Relations Center as illustrated in a promotional pamphlet
by Kenneth Wiering
Bethel is cramped for space. At peak
periods, classes are forced to use studios
and conference rooms while up to four
part-time faculty share one office. Lounge
space has dissappeared to make place for
administrative offices while student
groups are squeezed into small rooms.
Two growing departments are also asking for more space and lunch-hour traffic
still crowds Market Square.
The situation has made the college desperate for another building. However,
financial planning shows that Bethel will
not break ground for at least another two
years for the new Community Relations
Center (CRC).
Proposed provisions of the CRC includea
2000-seat auditorium, a theatre, galler
ies, classrooms, offices, and a conference
center. But according to Director of Design and Planning and chair of the CRC
Project Development Committee, David
Lissner, Bethel may only have a section of
the building by 1991. "In all likelihood,
budget constraints will be such that make
it go up in sections," said Lissner. And
according to the committee's report to
the Regents, "it is almost a certainty that
the proceeds of the present capital funds
come out of it at some point knowing
they have grown and that the experience
was worthwhile. "The reward is knowing
that in my own spiritual life and my own
belief system that death is a positive
experience and that it's simply a rebirth."
But Miller and the hospice staff don't get
"warm fuzzies" from it.
"One of the hardest things is being gone
on a Friday and coming back Monday and
having five or six patients who you were
close to die over the weekend," she said.
Miller said that in working with and caring
for patients she becomes attached to
them. "Ifyou totally detach yourself from
those people you become inhuman and
you don't want that."
After a patient dies, Miller goes into the
room, stands alone beside the corpse and
sings a song. "I find myself singing,
"There's a Sweet, Sweet Spirit in this
Place" because I know what the family
and patient went through and it's finally
over and they're peaceful."
Like most students at Bethel, Miller was
busy preparing for a career. At the "height
of everything," she didn't think much
about death. Then nursing student Lynn
Hummel died in a car accident. It was
then, while Miller was doing her intern-
See Hospice, page 2
campaign cannot support a construction
project larger than that single item."
"It's tough, it's tough," said Dale Rott,
member of the CRC committee. "The
program to raise money for this project is
behind schedule and Bethel just does not
have the capacity to hold a building costing more than the existing buildings." said
Rott.
The CRC committee in cooperation with
Bernard Herman Architects Inc. will prioritize the space needs at Bethel. Lissner
said the analysis should be finished by
Christmas and ready to present to the
Regents. "And they may defer the chapel
for classroom space if the fundraising
cannot meet the monetary demands. It
would be a plus to have the auditorium up
for income generating events like the Festival of Christmas," Lissner said.
Tricia Brownlee, who is responsible for
assigning faculty offices and also serves
as a member of the committee had another concern. "There definitely will be a
problem with office space next year."
Office space for faculty has been manageable this year since several professors
resigned or retired. However, Bethel
plans to hire 12 new faculty for fall of 1988.
"We definitely do not have the space,"
said Brownlee. "I guess it will be my
responsibility to find space for the extra
faculty, but there should be an emphasis
on classrooms more than anything else."
On the average, well over 90 percent of
See Space, page 2