Honeybee Hospice

10/07/2025

Deb is here today giving you a common myth about hospice!

Why is family important when someone chooses hospice care?

~Enhanced Comfort & Security for the Patient: The presence of familiar faces, shared stories, and loving touch provides immense emotional comfort and a sense of security. Knowing loved ones are near can significantly reduce anxiety, fear, and loneliness during a vulnerable time. Family presence reassures patients they are cherished and not alone.

~Ensuring Wishes Are Honoured: Family members often have unique insights into the patient’s lifelong values, beliefs, preferences, and what brings them joy – information that might not be in any medical chart. This is especially vital if the patient’s ability to communicate diminishes. Family can advocate for these wishes, ensuring care decisions align with who the patient truly is.

~Personalising the Care Experience: Sharing details about the patient’s routines, habits, likes, and dislikes allows the hospice team to tailor care more effectively. These small details, often best known by family, contribute to more personalised and dignified care.

~Strengthening Connections & Finding Closure: Hospice can be a sacred time for connection. Being involved allows families opportunities to share memories, express love, seek forgiveness, say goodbye, and reinforce bonds. This process is vital for the patient’s sense of peace and legacy, and for the family’s journey toward healing and closure.

~Supporting Family Well-being & Coping: Actively participating can provide family members with a sense of purpose and reduce feelings of helplessness. Being involved helps demystify the dying process and allows families to feel they provided loving care, which can ease grief and reduce regret later. The direct connection also means easier access to the hospice team’s support resources for themselves.

10/01/2025

There are times when a loved one is experiencing a serious illness and they, or you, might be wondering what services might be more beneficial. While both hospice and home health offer skilled nursing care there are some key differences.

Hospices are designed as an additional layer of care to optimize your comfort and quality of life during your last days, weeks and even months of life. Hospice is not only there to manage pain, they also offer nursing assistants, along with emotional and spiritual supports through social workers and chaplains. Medical supplies and equipment are provided as an additional hospice benefit. Hospice care extends from the patient to the family and can be provided where ever the patient may reside.

Home Health is restricted to skilled nursing care with treatments such as physical, speech and occupational therapy. These treatments are designed to regain strength, independence and help you learn to live with illness or disability. Medications, supplies and personal care services are usually not included, or must be paid out of pocket. Home health care is focused on the patient, while hospice care is focused on the patient and their families.

Honeybee Hospice care teams are here to provide patients and their families with support and high-quality care. Call us today at 406.498.7149 to learn if you or your loved one can benefit from our services.

09/24/2025

Coordination is a vital pillar here at Honeybee Hospice. Each patient has unique needs and our goal is to always improve patient experience. Coordination of care ensures seamless communication between healthcare professionals and family so they feel less stress during a profoundly challenging time.

09/04/2025

Larissa and Amanda will be having some fun down at the Alzheimer’s Walk at The Springs today from 2-4! They have live music, some fun treats, vendors and a walk to end Alzheimer’s! Come stop down and help be apart of this incredible journey as we all fight to end Alzheimer’s 💜

08/21/2025

We have a few things happening with Honeybee Hospice today! We are having our monthly Grief Group in partnership with Axelson Funeral & Cremation Services and Belmont Senior Center today 1pm, please join us at the Belmont. Snacks and drinks provided and a small raffle.

And then we are in Deer Lodge at the Community Center from 11am-1pm with some fun games and goodies! Come by and see us!

Our monthly grief group in partnership with Axelson's and The Belmont Senior Center will be held today at 1pm at the Belmont Center. Small snacks and drinks are provided along with a small raffle prize. Please join us, all in the community are welcome to join.

08/08/2025

What a wonderful Senior Health Fun Fair 2025 brought!! Perfect weather, great music and dance performance, yummy burgers and fun raffles from amazing businesses in the area that service our seniors! Thank you Barrett Hospital & HealthCare and YMCA of Dillon for partnering with us to provide a great day for the community!

08/06/2025

Come down to the Fun Fair and have some fun with us! We are in Dillon today partnering with Barrett’s and the YMCA from 10:30-12. Lunch is provided at noon and as always this is a free community event age 40 and over!! 🐝

06/22/2025

I was walking down the aisle of a grocery store when I heard a little girl say to her mother, “you know mom, if I don’t eat for three days, I will die.”

I wanted to walk over and let that little girl know that she was wrong. I want everyone who thinks this to know that is wrong. To be fair, maybe some people have died from not eating for a few days but from my experience at the bedside of people who are dying, it has helped me to understand that the body can go a very long time without food. The longest I have witnessed is 19 days. This woman was non-responsive, in a coma-like state, no medications, and from my perspective did not appear to be suffering physically.

I truly believe that the body does not need to have food and water at the end of life. I think food and water can often disrupt the dying process, causing physical discomfort and often suffering.

Most people equate food and water to love, especially when they have been providing this for many years. Family members and caregivers want to push food and water, hoping it will strengthen their person, and make them feel better. But I don’t think it does.

When we are aging, and dying, our throats tend to close and our ability to swallow is reduced, causing people to aspirate/choke, which increases their fear. Sometimes they can tell you verbally that they don’t want food, or they can let you know by shaking their head “no,” closing their mouth when they are being fed, pocketing it in their cheeks, or spitting it out. Listen to them, they are trying to tell you they do not want it. Our role is to honor and respect that.

When we are at the end of our life and dying, our bodies do not benefit from food and water the way a strong and healthy body does. It doesn’t need it, and it doesn’t want it. They will not die faster because they are not eating, and they will not die from starvation or dehydration. They are already dying from the diagnosis and disease process. Not forcing food and water at this time is actually incredibly kind and compassionate.

You are not hurting them, you are giving their body the peace and comfort it needs to go through the dying process however that will look for them uniquely, which can sometimes be many days. Trust that the body knows what to do, and sometimes it lets go quickly and other times longer, but you aren’t hurting them, please trust me on that.

What someone needs when they are dying is physical comfort, to be kept clean, and to be provided with dignity and respect. All human beings deserve this.

xo
Gabby
www.thehospiceheart.net

I have written nine books, each with the intention of providing tips and tools for anyone providing end-of-life care. You can find them all on my author page: https://www.amazon.com/.../Gabrielle.../author/B0CPFTDCKT?

Find this blog here:
https://www.thehospiceheart.net/post/food-and-water-at-the-end-of-life