Ask Judy Carter’ s children and grandchildren who she was and they will say that she was“ the family matriarch.” She was the person who led them, who kept them close and the one to whom everyone turned for direction. She showered her family with love at every turn.
“ She was tough as nails,” her husband of 60 years, Phil Carter, said, marveling over Judy’ s strength when she learned she had lung cancer in 2013.“ It was much more difficult on me,” he said.
For three years, Judy valiantly fought the cancer. An aggressive chemotherapy and radiation regimen kept the cancer at bay long enough for the Carters to spend six weeks together in Florida in 2015. Not long after the couple returned, so did the cancer.
Judy underwent surgery at Barnes Hospital in St. Louis to remove as much tumor as possible, but it continued to grow. When her treatments began to drastically hamper her quality of life, Judy and her family made the difficult decision to accept hospice care.
Phil Carter with Erica Price, RN, Lincolnland Hospice caregiver
A Time of Glory and Sadness
Family celebrates life with help from Lincolnland Hospice.
Judy arrived home from the hospital in January – to the support of Lincolnland Hospice caregivers. Erica Price, RN, Haley Sun, RN, and Lori Britton, Lincolnland Hospice aide, immediately began working with the family to meet their needs.“ When hospice came in, Phil got his first good night’ s sleep in three years,” sister-in-law Carol said.“ They came in and gave us a plan – no more worrying about when she needed medicine. All that second-guessing and worrying was gone.”
6 healthstyles november 2016