Spring 2017 Newsletter

Volunteer Appreciation Dinner

The season of Spring turns our thoughts toward the upcoming Volunteer Appreciation Dinner to be held on April 3oth at St. Peter’s Parish Center. The program will begin at 5pm with a presentation about the criteria for hospice, given by Dr. Ed Guelig. Dinner will follow the presentation, and door prizes will be awarded. Many of you plan to attend this event, which is a celebration of the ministry we share at Samaritan House. Last minute reservations can be made by calling (570) 404-2180 no later than Friday, April 14th.

National Recognition

Samaritan House has received national recognition through a recent article featured in the National Catholic Reporter! Click on the link below to read "Samaritan House is a 'spa for the dying', by Peter Feuerherd. 
 https://www.ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/samaritan-house-spa-dying 
 
This recognition reflects the dedication and service of each one of you, and is shared with deepest appreciation.
 
House Renovations
A new washing machine has been installed in the basement. New emergency lighting has also been installed. It is designed to last for about two hours during an outage.  The front door and kitchen will soon be painted, and a major outdoor renovation is being planned to create a safer entrance to the house.
 
Prayer Shawl Ministry
The Prayer Shawl Ministry will meet near the Blessed Sacrament on Sunday, April 30th, following the 8:30am Mass at St. Peter’s. Participants will prayerfully knit and crochet the shawls to be shared with the sick. For more information, or to request a shawl, contact Jan Bernethy at (307) 267-0677.  

Book Group
The Samaritan House Book Group gathered twice this year. Volunteers in attendance have enjoyed thoughtful discussions and sharing, and refreshments. The next meeting is scheduled for Monday, May 8th at 6:30pm in the Adult Ed room at the Parish Center. The group will reflect on the book “When Breath Becomes Air”, by Paul Kalanithi.
Some books can be borrowed from the Samaritan House or the Green Free Library. To purchase, visit our local bookstore “From My Shelf”. http://www.wellsborobookstore.com/

Friendly Reminders

Please arrive 15 minutes before your scheduled shift. This allows for time to read the log and to change/turn a guest if necessary.

• Confidentiality is a very important part of the Samaritan House ministry.  Please remember to respect the privacy of our guests and their families.  The back door is to be locked between the hours of 9pm and 7am.
• Forms for the log book are stored in folders in the brown cupboard beside the desk. These include a new Master Signature List (gold in color) for signing when a volunteer dispenses medication(s) for the first time.
• Housekeeping lists and the pink medication sheets are now two-sided.
• Volunteers who are scheduled for the 7am to 11am shift are asked to empty and record urinary output in the volunteer log. Please circle this in red, to better assess a guest’s status.
• Prior to storing urinals and basins, please rinse them with a Clorox/water solution.
• Extra paper towels, toilet paper and hand soap are stored in the bathroom vanities and also in the cupboard above the toilet in the guest bathroom. Some may also be stored in the basement. Extra water/beverage is stored in the cupboard under the microwave. Extra light bulbs are on the top of the refrigerator and in the basement desk.
• Feel free to take recyclables home with you if you recycle.
• Consider bringing extra shoes or slippers to wear in the house during inclement weather.
• After a guest passes, please check the corner cupboard (where the television is located) for personal items.

  “When Breath Becomes Air”, by Paul Kalanithi.

At the age of thirty six, on the verge of completing a decade’s worth of training as a neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. One day he was a doctor treating the dying, and the next he was a patient struggling to live. And just like that, the future he and his wife had imagined evaporated. When Breath Becomes Air chronicles Kalanithi’s transformation for a naïve medical student “possessed,” as he wrote, “by the question of what, given that all organisms die, makes a virtuous and meaningful life” into a neurosurgeon at Stanford working in the brain, the most critical place for human identity, and finally in to a patient and new father confronting his own mortality.

 What makes life worth living in the face of death? What do you do when the future, no longer a ladder toward your goals in life, flattens out in to a perpetual present? What does it mean to have a child, to nurture a new life as another fades away? These are some of the questions Kalanithi wrestles with in the profoundly moving memoir.

Paul Kalanithi died in March 2015, while working on this book, yet his words live on as a guide and a gift to us all. “I began to realize that coming face to face with my own mortality, in a sense, had changed nothing and everything” he wrote. “Seven words from Samuel Beckett began to repeat in my head: ‘I can’t go on. I’ll go on.’” When Breath Becomes Air is an unforgettable, life-affirming reflection on the challenge of facing death and on the relationship between doctor and patient, from a brilliant writer who became both.  

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