Testimonial from Dr. Spencer Annabel

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Hospice is compassionate end-of-life care and support focused on comfort and quality for individuals who are no longer seeking curative treatment. It is not limited to patients with cancer but includes any diagnosis with a life expectancy of six months or less. The following is a testimonial provided by Dr. Spencer Annabel, a CareFirstNY hospice patient since 2022.

“It is my opinion that the biggest obstacle for patients in seeking hospice enrollment is the patient’s acceptance of their approaching demise when the curative treatment is no longer working.

I am a current hospice patient with Stage IV lung cancer. My prolonged survival without treatment is rather surprising even to me. I have been in hospice care for more than two years now.

As a retired physician with a 45-year medical practice of internal medicine and cardiology, I have an insight into the progression of disease that many patients would not have. As my disease has progressed, I have had to change my activities to find things that I can still do and enjoy. This past fall I had to give up riding my e-bike out of doors because of loss of balance due to my pain medication. This activity has been replaced with riding a Nordic Track bicycle inside, which provides me with a hard workout without the risk of falling. I believe in strength training to help decrease muscle loss. 

However, as fatigue has increased, I have had to select some sedentary activities such as model building. 

Hospice care has improved the quality of my life by providing control of pain from my cancer. Even as a practicing physician, I was unaware that liquid morphine concentrate begins working 15 minutes after the patient takes it. This is a real advantage when I wake up in the morning without pain medication all night and need to get comfortable and up and moving. If I took an oral medication at this point, it would take about one hour for that medicine to work. My hospice nurse has helped me understand how to best use my medication to control my pain so that I can enjoy the time that I have left. Hospice has been very good at achieving good pain control for me.

Multiple services are available through CareFirstNY, including nurse and social worker visits. They have worked in coordination with my physician to optimize my pain management. My hospice nurse is just a phone call away. If it is after regular hours, a nurse is always on-call. The hospice team also has a social worker to help the family deal with the impending loss of the terminally ill patient. They even offer support services when needed, such as help with bathing.

Several years ago, my wife and I had a museum built on our home property to display my collections, and I am still able to enjoy spending time there. I am currently completing a large-scale model railroad. This is sedentary work and enjoyable. It is my philosophy that as one's condition changes, your activities need to change to do things that you still find enjoyable. As long as the patient is still here, the patient needs to optimize their daily life and the time they have left with their families. CareFirstNY has helped me do this by helping me achieve good pain control and providing my wife and me with emotional support. Once it becomes clear that a curative treatment is no longer working, I would highly recommend to patients that they discuss with their practitioner as early as possible concerning their potential enrollment in hospice care. Hospice care has certainly led to a significant improvement in my ability to enjoy the small things in my daily life with the time that I have left.” 

- Dr. Spencer Annabel, June 2024