Ask N.B. to recount the lowest point in her life and she doesn’t have to stop and ponder. In October 2006, the Jericho native recalls, the father of her child had kicked her out “for the 50th time.” An intravenous drug habit had withered her down to 85 pounds, and both her arms were bruised, from wrists to shoulders. Then she discovered she was pregnant again. read more
Nicole and Justin Matten of Barton have lived every parent’s worst nightmare. On December 2 their 7-year-old daughter, Kaylynne, visited her physician for an annual checkup. She got a flu shot. The next day, she developed a bad headache and fever. On December 6, the normally happy and healthy girl, who had no previous history of chronic health problems or adverse reactions to vaccines, turned blue, stopped breathing and died in her mother’s arms. read more
Start the Conversation is a public education initiative created by your local, non-profit Visiting Nurse Associations and Home Health and Hospice agencies, to encourage you to know your end-of-life care choices, talk about your wishes with loved ones and doctors, and put your plans in writing. We have learned through recent surveys in our communities that there is confusion and questions about end-of-life care choices.
Our goal is to improve the understanding of end-of-life care choices and encourage people to talk about these choices with their families and their doctors. We have partnered with the Vermont Ethics Network to provide additional support and guidance on advance care planning, which includes completing an advance directive, the plan that describes your end-of-life care wishes.
Take the next step. Start the Conversation. It’s a gift.
During our planning process, it became apparent that the goals and mission of the Vermont Palliative and End-of-Life Care Resource Connections website (www.vtpcrc.org) were closely aligned to Start the Conversation and that a collaborative approach would help achieve our objectives. The sponsors of Start the Conversation worked with the Madison-Deane Initiative and the Palliative Care Collaborative to use the existing on-line resources in the creation of this website.
Using the former Vermont Palliative and End-of-Life Care Resource Connections website (www.vtpcrc.org) as a foundation, we updated the design and expanded the information and resources to meet our shared goals of assisting Vermont patients, caregivers and professionals facing life-limiting illnesses to more easily identify and access community services, programs and resources.
A program of Visiting Nurse Association of Chittenden & Grand Isle Counties
With generous support from the Palliative Care Collaborative, The University of Vermont College of Medicine
© 2009–2012 Vermont Palliative and End-of-Life Care Resource Connections. All rights reserved.
Vermont website design, graphic design, and web hosting provided by Vermont Design Works
