End-of-life care at home

When someone is dying at home, the family should get to be the family — holding a hand, telling the stories, sitting quietly — rather than spending the last weeks managing logistics. That is the part I take on.

Hospice teams are excellent and they are not there all the time. A nurse visits, a social worker visits, a chaplain visits, and in between there are long hours that belong to whoever is in the house. Those hours are where I work: the turning and repositioning, the mouth care, the clean sheets, the small comforts that keep someone at ease between clinical visits.

I have sat many vigils. I know what the last days tend to look like, what changes in breathing usually mean, and how to say so gently and honestly when a family asks. Knowing roughly what is coming does not make it less sad, but it takes away the particular terror of not knowing whether what you are seeing is normal.

I also watch the people who are not dying. Families at the end tend to stop eating and sleeping, and someone needs to notice that out loud. Part of the job is making sure the living are cared for too.

What this looks like

Comfort care between hospice visits

Repositioning, mouth and skin care, cool cloths, clean linens — the physical comfort work that fills the hours a visiting nurse cannot.

Vigil and overnight presence

Sitting through the nights so the family can sleep, or so nobody has to be alone at the end.

Plain answers, gently given

Telling you what changes usually mean, when you ask. Not knowing whether something is normal is its own kind of fear.

Coordination with your hospice team

Noticing and reporting what the team needs to know between visits, so nothing is discovered late.

Household steadiness

Meals, laundry, tidying and the dishes, so the house does not come apart in the weeks when nobody has capacity for it.

Care for the family

Making sure the people keeping vigil eat, sleep and step outside — because at the end, nobody else is watching for that.

This is probably for you if…

Hospice has been called in and the hours between visits feel very long
Someone is dying at home and the family is exhausted
You want your parent to die in their own bed and need help making that possible
Nobody should be alone at night and the family cannot cover every night

Where my scope ends

I work alongside hospice, not instead of it. I am a CNA: I do not administer medication, including comfort medication, and I do not make clinical decisions. Your hospice nurse does that; I am there for the hours in between.

Where I provide this care

In-home care across the Sierra foothills. Choose your county for what care looks like locally:

Tuolumne County

Being based in the county means same-week consultations are usually possible, and short visits are practical in a way they are not an hour away.

Calaveras County

Ongoing scheduled care works better than ad-hoc visits across a county this spread out — it is worth planning the week rather than the day.

Amador County

Best suited to longer bookings — full days, overnights and vigil care — rather than short daily visits.

Let's talk it through

The first conversation is free and there's nothing owed for it. Call or text (619) 407-0301 — or ask whatever you're unsure about first.

Call (619) 407-0301