 and welcome to Independent Lifestyles, a show of the Aging and Disability Resource Center of Sheboygan County. With me today, I have Luanne Travis with Sharon S. Richardson Community Hospice and Jane Brill of Generations and Plymouth. Welcome, ladies. Thank you. Thanks. Let's start out with Luanne. Let's give us a little bit of background of Sharon S. Richardson Community Hospice. Sure, sure. I am the coordinator of community engagement for Sharon S. Richardson Community Hospice. When I became the coordinator of community engagement, my kids said, what does that mean? And I said, I engage with the community. So that helped. But really, I provide that education and advocacy in the community for end-of-life opportunities and conversations. And so we educate about the services that are available when we have end-of-life needs. Sharon S. Richardson Community Hospice is entering its 13th year, 2007. We opened our doors. And truly, it is a love story between Joe and Sharon Richardson and Sharon battled breast cancer for many years. And then when recovery and cure was not going to be in the cards for her, then she wanted to leave a legacy and she wanted to leave a gift to the community. And her oncologist whispered in her ear that he had always wanted a hospice center and kind of big ask, right? And Joe said, I promise, I promise I'll get it built with the help of the community. So it's through community dollars, blended funding that in 2007 the hospice center was built. And Joe kept his promise and that's why we say that our mission is our promise. It's our promise to provide compassionate care and quality of life to all those in need. And that's their legacy. And we are a nonprofit and that means that with our nonprofit status, that means we are valued by the community. We're supported on all levels. And also it allows us to have a charitable mission. And our charitable mission is we don't turn anybody away, ever, you know, regardless of your ability to pay. We always find through our patient care fund a way of helping to make sure that you get the needs that you meet. So that's us in a nutshell. And the beautiful hospice center is located on Highway 20, right off of Highway 28 in Schwagen Falls. And that's the center. But then you also have your staff that goes into the home as well, providing care, correct? Correct. So we do provide hospice services and we also provide palliative care. For those times that we need some comfort care, we need support. And we are not ready for hospice services. Or maybe we don't qualify, but we need that extra support. And you're right. We have a beautiful center on Highway 28. And most people associate us with the center. And there is this challenge to get people to understand that you don't have to come to the center to get hospice services or palliative care. We are out in the home. About 95% of the families that we serve are in their homes or they're at facilities. The center is for that 24-hour skilled nursing, when there's extra attention that needs to be given. So, yeah. Right. Thank you. Yeah. And Jane, from Generations and Plymouth. So give us a little bit of background and explanation of some of the wonderful activities you have going on at Generations and Plymouth. Of course. So Generations is an intergenerational community center. And a lot of people wonder what does intergenerational mean. It takes into account from birth all the way up to yesterday we had someone celebrate their hundred and two birthday. So she comes to exercise class every day. So we had cake and everything. So it's every generation that walks through our doors that we are trying to engage in overall well-being through education sessions, through exercise, through community programs. Generations again is a community nonprofit. So back in the 90s there was a group of people that got together and thought it would be great to do an intergenerational center. At the time Plymouth was looking for a different location for their senior center and the Here We Grow Daycare was also looking for a new facility because they were growing as well. So the entities got together with a few other nonprofits and did the fundraising, worked with the city to get some funding, they got a community block grant and a lot of community support from individuals as well as businesses and generations was built. It's a beautiful community center located on County Trunk E. I mean sorry, Implemouth. And they, you know we do everything from exercise classes every day through educational programs. We have a restaurant Piccadilly which serves great food from 11 to 2 every day but they also cater different events, parties, retirement parties, sports banquets, we have weddings at our facilities. So we also host many events for private events as well as public events, company picnics and then we're a non-profit hub which is really cool. So we have the Family Resource Center, we have the ADRC, we are the home of the Plymouth Meals site and we have Safe Harbor has an office in our location as well as the Plymouth Adult Community Center. And then of course we have growing generations which is a daycare from birth through 4K and then we have the Head Start program. So we have children all the way up to age 12 in our building. Usually on any given day 85 to 100 kids when there's no school up to 120 that are interacting and engaging with the other community members that are there every day. So it's a very vibrant center and there's always things going on which is just my favorite part about the job. So truly playing towards the mission of intergenerational. Yep, intergenerational and well-being of the community and building those relationships that make our community stronger through the understanding of the younger generations to the older generations. Wonderful, which is a great segue into the reason that we're here today ladies and that is to talk about the program series coming up for the second year in a row crack, inspiring the conversation, think, talk, and act. And Sheerness Richardson Community Hospice has brought together partners within the community to present this program series which includes generations, the Aging and Disability Resource Center which is through the county obviously, embrace care management and the senior activity center of Sheboycan. So let's talk a little bit about that, Luanne. What was the inspiration for these educational programs to bring them to the community? Sure. So like you said, it's the second year for inspiring the conversation. Sheerness Richardson Community Hospice, we serve as the backbone and the foundation for this. However, again, we've been saying the word community, community, community means collaboration and we understand that we need to collaborate and we want to collaborate with the organizations that you just said, Generations, Embrace Care Management, Sheboycan, Senior Activity Center and ADRC because we believe we have a very similar mission in serving especially an aging population. So we were inspired first by national statistics and also by our own experiences in providing hospice services is that when we look at end of life, I say opportunities. I don't say end of life needs. I say opportunities. We look at, we can't just say end of life opportunities is when you are dying and you need hospice. We have to look further and earlier down the road, earlier to these conversations that should be having about how I define quality of life. So the national statistics are showing us that every day 10,000 people are roughly turning 65 years old. The statistics show us that by 2030, our aging population will outnumber even our children's age. When we look at how the statistics are of people who are now going down their healthcare journey and getting to disease management or aging management and then dying. We don't even want to say that. When we look at that, we find out that people haven't even had conversations about how they want that managed and what is quality of life. They haven't had the conversations with their doctors. They haven't had the conversations with their families. So what we're finding now when we transition into what our experiences are as hospice providers is that people come to us, not conversation ready sometimes, and then there's undue stress and there's undue conflict or there's undue kind of suffering that some of these things didn't have to happen and be shell shocked and like somebody who just said yesterday when I was at early bird rotary is like I felt I was hit over the head and blindsided. But if we have earlier conversations and we start looking at what does it mean to have my quality of life? What does a good day look like to me? What does comfort care mean to me? What are some things I absolutely do not want and some things I think I do want? So that's what's inspiring us. The thing that I look at is we can all point to things that we have conversations about our entire life, right? We had conversations about our careers. We taught our kids that what do you want to be when you grow up? And we started looking at dreaming and planning and career planning. That conversation didn't take place when I woke up senior year and for the first time somebody asked me what do you want to be now? We talked about them early, early, early so it was embedded, parenting. How do we want to parent? So it's almost a shift in culture and how we handle that education and those conversations and really reducing in a sense almost the stigma associated with talking about the end of life and how important that is so we can all make an impact in having those conversations with our family members. It's not just the stigma, it's the fear. It's just the fear. We have a taboo topic is what it always has been and it shouldn't be. It's not like when is the right time topic. We could sit and have a conversation about that in a workshop about that too. When's the right time? Is it when all the kids are home for Christmas? Yeah, I don't think that's the right time. It doesn't feel good. Is it when they're all home for their cousin's wedding? You know what I mean? We're all in our brain want to know but the right time needs to be something that happens like you said taboo meaning it shouldn't be taboo. We should be able to bring it up and talk about it without it feeling icky or remorse or a downer. Right? Exactly. So when we look at Sharon S. Richardson Community Hospice and we look at how we want to look at our broadening how we can help and support in our community not only our partners but individually and change the fabric of how we approach. Get rid of that taboo, right? Get more comfortable. And that's part of what we hope to do with the inspiring the conversation. So let's start talking about those programs that are coming up. So the first program is Factor Fiction, Navigating the Use of Morphing in Long Term Illness. And that program you're actually doing on February 25th in Manitowoc which Sharon S. Richardson now has an office there and is serving the Manitowoc community as well. And then in Sheboygan County at Generations on February 27th. So let's talk a little bit about what that program is going to look like. If people attend that what will they expect to hear? So when we look at being conversation ready we look at also trying to define our quality of life. And so we want to inspire informed conversations. So informed means sometimes we had found out through our own service providers and out in the community that there's this kind of issue about morphine and the use of morphine. And there's a stigma about the use of morphine. And is it just that I'll get signed up for hospice and all of a sudden they'll come in with the morphine? Or I don't want the morphine. Or why are we giving morphine? So we look at that whole culture we have around morphine because they are associated with opioids, right? It is an opioid. And what happens emotionally when we're caring for our loved ones and it's medicated, that concept of medicated? So we will be talking, we will have the Christa Wilson from Lakeshore Community Health Care. And that serves, that clinic serves Sheboygan and Manitowoc. So Lakeshore Community Healthcare is a community healthcare center that serves the underinsured or the noninsured but they also serve the insured. They would love you to be a choice for them. And Christa Wilson is the pharmacist. And she's going to talk about some of the issues and some of the fears around morphine. Correct. And some of the issues that we have that from the very beginning going through the healthcare center, where does this all stem from? And so she's going to talk about some of the myths meaning, oh, if I use morphine, then I'll become an addict, those type of things. And then we're going to transition the conversation into now that we've got an understanding of that. Then we're going to talk to Amy Clark, who is the nurse practitioner at Sharon S. Richardson Community Hospice and Jen Hasse, who's the social worker. And they're going to talk about now when somebody is transitioning to end of life care, some of these myths that we've been caring with us do come with us, you know, even during that time. And then how is it that morphine and the use of morphine is very different when our body is at end of life versus when our body is not? And so we'll unpack some of those things. So that program will be in Manitowoc on February 25th from 6 until 7.30 at your Calumet Avenue address, 4411. And then in Sheboygan County on the 27th, it's actually being offered twice. In Plymouth at generations from 2 until 3.30 and then in Sheboygan at the Health and Human Services Building from 6 until 7.30. So we welcome people to join in. It's open to the public. And then the program series continues on March 19th with taking the mystery out of palliative care. What is the difference between palliative care and hospice care? And wow, I have to say that in my role as the community, as a caregiver coordinator, I hear a lot from the caregivers really wanting to know what that difference is. And Jane, are you able to explain to us briefly what that difference is? Yeah, I feel free to jump in on anything that I missed. So I think through the efforts of Sharon Richardson Hospice, the community has become more familiar with hospice care than it has. But the palliative care is still new. And it's great that we have these teams that will come out and provide palliative care. So palliative care is putting together a care team when you have been diagnosed with a serious illness. So cancer, congestive heart failure, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, MS. So along with the doctors and the specialists that you're seeing, you have a palliative care team. So it could be doctors, nurses, social workers that make sure that they're addressing your needs when it comes to any pain that you may have, any sort of stress and any other sort of comfort things that you may need. But that's done along with the curative treatments and therapies that you're going through. So it's a serious illness, but you're still trying to cure that illness, or still keep your quality of life and keep going on with your daily activities. And the fact that you can be diagnosed with a serious condition, but have people that support you and your caregivers. So it's not just for you, but also for your family. Because you have your stress that you might be going through if you're the one diagnosed, but so does your family. How did they provide the best care for you? How did they deal with maybe your moods that you might have with the stress of, now, how do I cope with this? How is my life going to change? How do I go on? So really making that distinction between palliative care and hospice. And hospice is usually you're not having that curative treatment and therapy anymore. It's more towards the end of your life. And palliative, you could still have a long life with palliative care. Even if you get through some of the rough parts, and it could be you have that care when you need it. So if you're doing great, maybe you don't need to meet with your palliative care team. But if all of a sudden you have a relapse, then it's a good time to you know that they're there for you. So I think explaining that difference is really important because it is being promoted a lot more. We had somebody recently in our office who had a family member who was very sick. And they talked about palliative care. And she came and she was like, Jane, what's palliative care? I don't even know what it is. And I thought, oh, I wish we would have this session right now that she could go and really, you know, understand what palliative care is for her as well as for her family member. And it's exactly true, Jane. You know, this series wants to educate people. Again, our health care journey is all the way, all the way through. And sometimes I think what we have a difficulty communicating is exactly what you said, Jane, is that I always feel like it's all or nothing kind of thing. Like I feel like I am in treatment and I'm trying to manage all of this disease process plus some of the symptoms that come with it in treatment. And then, but hospice is not something maybe I'm ready to talk about yet or even turn to. There is a whole service called palliative care. So again, our nurse practitioner, Amy Clark, she will be presenting along with our social worker, Nicole Danenberg, about those ins and outs of palliative care, the benefits, how it benefits the loved one, how it benefits the caregivers, how it even benefits facilities, because maybe my loved one is in a facility. Can I still get palliative care when somebody's, my loved one's in a facility? So again, it's all of these benefits and all these conversations to help, you know, to help give clarity, hopefully, you know, we all want to try to work toward clarity. And the palliative care session will be on March 19th. Again, twice, offering in-plimate at generations from 2 until 3.30. And then in the evening in Shpuygan at the Health and Human Services building downtown from 6 until 7.30. So thanks. And then we know that from last year that there's always a featured speaker that grabs up the series. So on April 23rd, there will, at the Kohler Memorial Theater, there will be a featured speaker, the conversation ready, because when it comes to talking, when it comes to end of life, talking matters. So it kind of wraps up everything we've been kind of discussing today. And tell us a little bit about that and the featured speaker. So Panty Webster comes to us from the Conversation Project. You can Google the Conversation Project, and you will see a wonderful national website. And it's a national collaboration that has been identified that we aren't having these conversations soon enough. So when we say be conversation ready, that's not just a Shpuygan County Sharon S. Richardson Community Hospice belief. It's a national movement. To get people to talk more through many different venues, sometimes people are hosting death over dinner parties, where you are coming to dinner with like-minded people that do want to have an opportunity to talk in a very approachable way. They have also conversation starter kits, which is their main thing, is about how is it I first think about, again, think, talk, act? How do I think about these conversations? And then how do I talk about them, act them? So Panty Webster, she is the person that is in charge here of their community engagement. She's flying to us. She's going to give the conversation. She's going to be inspiring. She's going to be approachable. And she's going to be like, wow, that was really cool to go to as opposed to, ooh, I don't know if I should go because they're going to talk about dying and stuff. She's going to give many examples about how can we have our own conversations that fits me, my personality, that fits my family, that fits my friend. How to kind of customize those conversations and feel comfortable. And approachable. Again, we want to inspire people to have the conversations so that you can leave going. I think I've got a few little things that I can work with here. During the drive home, if it helps with the drive home to say, what do you think about that? This is what I thought. Hmm, do you think we should be doing something more, talk about this more? It really does start like a mustard seed, right? I mean, it does truly start by planting seeds, planting seeds. But if we start them earlier, hopefully things start sprouting. And Panty Webster, she's delightful and she's wonderful. I've been a part of many of her webinars. And she does a nice job of facilitating these conversations. And we will be at the Kohler Memorial Theater and people will say, well, what? That's like the Kohler High School, right? Get to Kohler. Get to the Kohler High School. On all of these locations, you'll see identifying us, there'll be plenty of people on site to help direct you of where is this and where am I going? And so we'll be there to make sure you get to the right place. And if anybody has any questions, they can always call Shearne S. Richardson on your... Generations or partners. On your websites, too, as well, correct, on the website's Facebook pages. So kind of know that things are out there. There's an email address on there that you can email for a reservation. You can call for a reservation. We ask for reservations just because we want to know how many chairs to have. Exactly. I always say that. And if they say, do you need a reservation, I'll say, well, it's kind of like, do I plan for 20 or do I plan for 50? You kind of want to know that. But this is all free, correct? It's all free. All free to public. And I'm glad you quick-wrapped that in there. It is all free due to the generous donations of many companies. When you see our flyer or see this advertised, you will see all of the companies and corporations and church there that have helped collectively put funds together. When we called our partners to the table, we didn't call them to the table to ask for funding. We truly called them to the table for partnership so that we can all get the word out and inspire conversations about what a good day looks like to me. Wonderful information. And what is the general number to call for that reservation? The hospice centers, I'm sorry, I don't have the number off the top of my head, only because also we have our own individual extension number, but I'm sorry, I don't have our number. But I've called you and now I look at it on the sheet and I say it's 920-467-1800. Right. Anyway, it's 1800. Sometimes I used to work in the family resource center, sometimes my head wants to come out with that number. And I go, no, no, no, wait. Well, you don't call yourself, right? No, that makes sense. Well, thank you, ladies. Thank you so much for joining me today. And this is a wonderful topic inspiring the conversation. This is Lisa Hurley of Independent Lifestyles from the Aging and Disability Resource Center, making your life better today.