Here For It – With Help From Hospice of the Foothills

by Hollie Grimaldi Flores

Death comes for all of us.  For some, it is a quick and unexpected ending. For others, it is a longer journey.  When death came for Alan Falstreau, it came with a triple whammy of prostate cancer and dementia, at the height of the pandemic.  

Covid meant limited visits with family, and friends would not be stopping by.  If not for Hospice of the Foothills, the journey for Alan and his wife of 44 years, Marylou, would be one they would be taking alone. 

Marylou Falstreau said their time with Hospice of the Foothills (HOF) began several months before Alan died, through the Palliative care program in 2020.  The medication Alan was taking to treat his cancer impacted his quality of life to the extent that stopping the drug was determined to be the best course of action.  “His oncologist immediately suggested palliative care. We got started on that, and it was clear the writing was on the wall, within a month or so he was put on Hospice,” she said.  

Hospice of the Foothills physician, Dr. Rene Kronland, had been Marylou’s primary care physician many years before and called to suggest moving Alan onto hospice care, “You always wonder if you are making the best decision.”  Marylou remarked. 

Any expectation of how things were going to be had to be tossed out the window, as Covid made everything different.  “This was in the middle of Covid, so my expectation was different from the way it turned out to be, but everything was different than I thought it would be, “ Marylou explained.  “My expectation was that friends would be coming to see us and Hospice (HOF) volunteers would be able to come.  And most friends didn’t come, and Hospice volunteers were not going into homes anymore.”

What was beyond expectation was the strong relationship between the couple and the Hospice of the Foothills team.  “These people became our friends, and our family and our support --- they became everything because of Covid. Our kids came of course, but we didn’t have a lot of people other than Hospice coming and going.”  

Marylou continued to run her wholesale/resale business shipping orders in the mornings and after Alan settled for the evening.  And she was able to watch her granddaughter two days a week.  “The endorphins kick in and something almost supernatural happens,” Marylou explained.  

But the emotions got put to the side, she said. “It gets shelved a big portion of the time because you can’t allow yourself to fall apart.  There’s no one really to take care of you, although the hospice people gave me every opportunity when I was just feeling overwhelmed to share my feelings and my story.  Every now and then you cry at night, but you just can’t fall apart, but I am not that kind of person.”  She shared there were times the staff actually shed tears when she was not able to cry herself. 

The services HOF provided began with an evaluation with an RN to get a plan set and teaching Marylou how to administer medications through the stages, as it became more difficult.  A caregiver came to shower him twice a week and would rub his feet with lotion (which turned out to be his favorite thing).

Marylou said a couple of times she called after hours, “The best part was I called when things were not good, and they came out and sat with me and talked as long as I needed them to talk.  They were lovely.”

A binder was provided with what dying really looks like and indicators, along with a lot of other useful information.  They also sent a spiritual counselor who Marylou said, “met her where she was.”   

When asked why the couple decided on Hospice of the Foothills to care for Alan at the end of his life, Marylou shared, “I feel strongly that it was a privilege and an opportunity, and I didn’t want to miss it.  I didn’t want to turn it over and have it be medicalized. Hospice gives you medicines to relieve the pain, will hook up a catheter, but other than that, there wasn’t any kind of medical treatment.  They are saying this is natural, this is what happens when you die. It’s not your natural inclination to just be with it.”

Marylou said she appreciated the encouragement the HOF team provided, “They were so sweet.  Every time they’d leave, (I think it was part of their training), they’d say, ‘you are doing a great job’ and I would usually say ‘thank you’, but every now and then I would say ’I know I am!  I am showing up for this!’ because I decided I was going to do a good job.”

Hospice of the Foothills made certain Marylou had the tools she needed and offered social workers and other resources, though she didn’t necessarily use them.  “What they brought to me was contact with other women who were caring and empathetic, but also brilliant in what they were trained to do and so I knew I could call in a moment’s notice and have help and either they would come and be here or they would guide me on the phone and I didn’t want any more than that.“

She doesn’t want to sugarcoat the journey.  While the couple was very connected, the relationship was a real one.  She admitted when he died there was a small sense of relief on one hand but also devastation. “He was my best friend. It’s such a confusion.  The feelings that occur.  The feelings of grief are all over the place. It’s so uniquely your own.” 

It's obvious Marylou has done a lot of work and a lot of living.  She admits receiving is not her strong suit, but she has a great deal of appreciation for all that HOF did for her.  “I needed them, desperately. I couldn’t have done it without them, especially with Covid.  I depended on them.  I had a group of friends. I had a community. I had experts, all wrapped up in these individuals that provided so many different needs.  They were so beyond Hospice, in my mind. I didn’t think of Hospice as an entity. I felt like this is my team.  This is my community.  They are here for me, no matter what.  So, it was like being embraced.  These were my people.  And more importantly, they were Alan’s people.”

Marylou said Alan would light up a little by the attention of the workers.  “You could see a glimmer of him wanting to charm, the man in him came out and he perked up a little bit.  He’d be a little bit sociable.  It made his life better.  When the hospice people came and filled up this space with warmth and real concern, and they liked him.  It made the end of his life better than it would have been if they weren’t here.   Oh man, without hospice…” she trailed off, she could not imagine it.