Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Day 340: AseraCare Volunteer

Patricia here.  Today was my first day of "officially volunteering" with the AseraCare Hospice team.  I went to their offices in Wellesley for a few hours this morning where I met the administrative support staff, the bereavement coordinator, some healthcare managers and a team nurse.  All lovely people!  After learning the whereabouts of supplies and resources, I was put right to work answering phones and updating files with the absolute TON of paperwork that follows every hospice case.  It sounds easy...and really, it was..... but the patient files are so incredibly thick with at least a dozen various tabs for all the categories of paperwork, all held together with some weird but functional plastic wire system that I had never used (or seen!) before, so the most challenging part was keeping all the paperwork threaded in the four inch thick, individual folders! Comical, really.
The handful of staff members I worked with all made me feel so welcome and appreciated with their flowing compliments.  It became the office joke as to whom I would help the most!  Very cute.  I also scheduled my first visit with a hospice patient, which will happen next week.  It looks like Wednesday will become my "Hospice Day" when I combine a few hours of office volunteer work with nearby  patient visits for a full day of AseraCare.  To be continued next Wednesday......
And P.S....I came home with a lovely note for Sophia, thanking her for the delicious cupcakes that she made for the patients last week!

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