Holly Colliers, a hospice volunteer, stands on the porch of her Salem home on Thursday, Dec. 10. (Amanda Loman/Salem Reporter)
With the pandemic taking hold in Oregon, Holly Collier began donning bulky personal protective gear before caring for patients through Willamette Valley Hospice. Colliers said it was initially strange wearing the gear while caring for patients in such a personal setting. But it took her about two minutes to adjust.
Collier developed her upbeat attitude after 15 years of volunteering with hospice and said she has an ability to see the glass three-quarters full. She recalled how hard it was wearing a mask to visit patients near the end of their life but quickly reframed the situation.
“I thought, well blind people and deaf people make connections all the time, we’re so adaptable as humans,” she said. “The connection happens. We can talk, we can see, we can hear and those are all real blessings in all of this.”
As hospice volunteers tend to those who are dying, Covid precautions have added an additional layer to the already isolating feelings surrounding death.
Collier said there’s a variety to what volunteers do when visiting homes. She usually stays for four hours at a time to give caretakers a break. She said she’s cleaned the kitchen or listened to 1950s music with patients while she’s there.
The patient Collier is currently caring for feels very alone, she said. They don’t have family visiting them and hospice workers and volunteers are the only contact each patient sees each week, she said.
“It’s an increase of 100% of what this patient would have if they were passing alone,” Collier said.
She said she had to stop volunteering for a couple months at the start of the pandemic when safety measures were first put in place. She stopped visiting an Alzheimer’s patient, but stayed in touch through letters.
When things opened back up, Collier said she had to start following a lot more protocols, like wearing a mask, face shield, gloves and gown while making house calls to chat or play cribbage.
Collier found her way to volunteering after Hospice had an impact on her own life.
She was raising three young boys when her mother was diagnosed with a form of ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease.
She said she was struck by the experience of watching her mother be cared for in hospice. As someone close to her came to the end of life, “We were all profoundly sad and also unsure of how to care for her at home in the way she wanted,” Collier said.
During her mother’s final two weeks of life, Collier said hospice workers were able to help and let her know what she was going through was normal.
She said it’s a blessing she can never repay.
Collier said Covid has been a day-to-day slog, but she keeps her head down and continues on.
“There’s no option not to continue especially when you’re dealing with this really important part of life,” she said.
Correction: The hospice volunteer is Holly Collier. An earlier version misstated her surname.
Have a tip? Contact reporter Saphara Harrell at 503-549-6250, [email protected].
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