How Palliative Care Helps

Parenting a Medically Complex Child: Palliative Care helped us plan his end-of-life at home
In this clip from Courageous Parents Network’s virtual video interview with Brenda Murray, Brenda shares how palliative care helped her develop a plan to care for Sam entirely at home, including through his end-of-life.
“I turned to them and I said, What can you do to help me so I don’t have to rush him off to the ER and he’s not going to be hooked up to machines?”Which is just not what we wanted for him. They helped us get all the documentation and planning reviewed and agreed upon by his pediatrician, his nurses, everyone.
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Parenting a Medically Complex Child: Palliative Care helped us plan his end-of-life at home

A Doctor: I saw that palliative care was a holistic way to think about care

Palliative Care and Pulmonology

A mother who is a doctor reflecting on her discovery of palliative care as an option for her child.

Palliative Care: I was able to unburden my worries to one person … and then the care conference allowed us to talk about everything.

The palliative care team would ask us, “How do you feel about what you just heard?”

What is Pediatric Palliative Care, Really?

Parenting a Medically Complex Child: finding palliative care and how it helped

Palliative Care Helps with Difficult Decisions

Parenting a medically complex child, and finding balance: Not every decision is critical.

Talking directly with parents: If we would just come out and say ...

Offering parents information and giving them the space reflect: Are we getting the right balance?

Palliative care helps parents pause and reflect.

Finding Hope

Once we understood what it was, we got on board pretty quickly.

Palliative Care made it possible for us to go home and live.

Palliative care isn't just skills and filling in a checklist.

It was like this little secret society.

Uncertainty in the face of serious illness in a child: Unpacking parents’ worries.

We provide parents with hope and also the courage they need to take the journey.

We provide our expertise over the continuum of care and support the broader team.

Palliative care is the beginning of finding your way.

Decision-Making: We created a space where we examined what the Next Steps are.

Palliative care gave us a language to talk to the medical specialists.

Palliative care helps reframe interventions like feeding tubes.

Palliative care fills a huge hole that comes from having a medically complex kid.

Palliative Care Focuses on All the Living

There’s no ONE conversation.

The palliative Care team helped me preserve his quality of life.

I always want parents to know they have a choice

I learned about palliative care and thought, that’s exactly what we need.

I wish somebody had told us about palliative care at the beginning.
