Inspirational Stories

Hospice Volunteer Becomes a Patient

It is just over eighteen months ago that the North Shore Hospice lost one of its special butterflies. When Joyce Gould picked up the phone to offer to be a volunteer at the hospice, she wasn't to know that in future years she would be terminally ill and in need of the hospice services for herself.

Joyce worked for four years at the hospice, at first on reception duties and then as part of the Daycare Team. Daycare volunteers at the hospice are a special group of people that prepare lunch and spend their time caring for patients and their families. Joyce was part of the Friday team, bringing to the group her own unique brand of loving care and concern.

"Joyce had a beautiful nature so that everyone she came in contact with felt at ease" says her husband Reg. "There was a little group of them who teamed together to help the hospice on Friday. They created an incredible atmosphere. There was no doom and gloom."

"I know she did so much good although she seldom spoke about her work at the hospice. There was, and still is, an unspoken rule that what went on at hospice didn't go outside hospice. There is great respect for the privacy of patients."

For Reg, Joyce's work at the hospice was completely in character with the extraordinary woman he had married. "I first met her in June of 57," says Reg. "She was wonderful - loving, caring and honest. I immediately knew she was the one." They married six months later in time for Christmas and they enjoyed forty-one years together. Joyce and Reg have three children and eight grandchildren.

A private person, when Joyce first found that she was terminally ill with cancer she decided to keep the news to herself and her immediate family. An extraordinarily strong woman she continued with her volunteer work at the hospice, caring for others who were facing the same plight as herself. Her over-riding concern was how her husband and family would cope after she was gone.

There were many tears at the hospice when people found out Joyce was terminally ill. "She was one of them so it hit hard," says Reg, "They were just wonderful when she was sick. They couldn't have done more to help her. She had a bad spell at Christmas time so she stayed in the hospice while they sorted things out for her. She was very dehydrated and she was having trouble taking her tablets. But they got a syringe driver working for her morphine and she improved greatly after that.

With the hospice's help, Reg was able to care for Joyce in their home for the fifteen months she was ill. "It couldn't have been this way if it wasn't for the hospice." True to a marriage where they did everything together, Reg was with Joyce at the very end when she died, peacefully, at their home.

Reg is still coming to terms with his loss. "She was a wonderful woman and I miss her everyday." She was known as the "brass lady" at the hospice, and Reg goes into the hospice once a month to polish the brass that his wife used to look after. "It's my way of carrying on her memory and the work she did for the hospice."