From the way we are born into this life, to how we live our life, to the way we leave this life—we are all unique.
Death is a hard thing. It is heartbreaking and it’s very difficult to wrap our heads around when we, or those we love, receive a terminal diagnosis. That is normal. That said, death doesn’t have to be scary or overwhelming. An End-of-Life Doula is sort of like a sherpa for the dying. We are trained to guide you through your transition, helping you understand and navigate the spiritual and emotional aspects of death while honoring your experience and your journey.
Our services offer enrichment to both curative and palliative plans and significantly compliment hospice service whether in a facility or at home. Our goal is to provide dignity, compassion, and peace.
- Companion to the dying person and their loved ones with regular visits.
- Advice and assistance assembling Advance Care Directives
- Life review/finding meaning
- Legacy projects
- Rituals and ceremonies created just for you and your loved ones.
- Guided meditation and breath awareness
- Provide deep active listening.
- Meet you where you are emotionally.
- Short term respite support.
- Support of family members by explaining the signs of death and helping them to prepare emotionally.
- Vigil planning.
- End of life planning: obituary writing, wake, funeral, memorial, burial or cremation, eco-friendly alternative.
- Since the health and personal circumstances of each person vary, the cost for end-of-life doula services can be on a sliding scale if needed. Please ask—no one should have to go without a doula due to finances.
- The initial consultation will be at no cost. Based upon your individual needs and timeframe, a package price will be determined, and a Service Agreement will be completed before our work begins.
- Our mission is to provide education, compassion, dignity, and peace to dying individuals and their loved ones. To be a companion, advocate, and coach during their final journey.
Packages and Definitions
Initial Consultation
Let’s get together and see how I can best be of service to you and your family. This no charge one-hour consultation can be in person, via phone, or zoom.
Pay As You Go Plan
This is most likely the plan you will want to start out with. Rates are $40-70 per hour and visits generally are about an hour per visit. *with that said, I will make sessions available on a sliding scale to those having financial difficulty. Make sure you ask about this. I will accommodate. No one should have to go without a doula simply because of money.
This pay-as-you-go plan is tailor-made for your unique situation. This plan is nice because we can cover a wide range of planning over a period of time. We can also cover just the things you want if we are working on very limited time.
We will agree on a price, payment plan, and enter into an agreement before beginning service.
Topics we can cover:
- Address worries and issues
- Explore the meaning of life
- Create a guided visualization
- Increase the quality of life
- Demonstrate touch and holding to loved ones
- Inform about the dying process
- Encourage emotional sharing
- Plan the atmosphere and involvement of the dying process, active dying, vigil
- Help with last wishes-where do you want to spend your final days, care and treatment of your body
- Start the difficult conversations about after death preferences (funeral, eulogy, etc)
Life Review / Vigil Planning $400.
(Initial visit approx 2 hours to discuss vision and goals) plus up to four additional visits approx 1 hour each.
Our goal in life review is to explore the patient’s life and bring meaning and awareness, help the dying person fully appreciate the richness of their life, and recognize the impact they have had on others. We will figure out all this plus incorporate your traditions, culture, and faith into your last chapter.
Patients who do a life review are more likely to feel a sense of integrity than despair. It is spiritually uplifting.
We will create a vigil plan (what should happen when death is near: symptom management, interactions with others, and how they want the space surrounding their death to look, feel, and be) and advocate for the patient and the family so their wishes are carried out. (*More on Vigil Plans below)
Legacy Project Only
$400.
Life Review / Vigil Plan / Legacy Project $750.
Includes the Life Review / Vigil Planning plus the doula will work with you and/or your support system to create a legacy project(s). These are tangible artifacts that help to connect family and friends to the deceased, long after the loved one has passed on. (*Learn more about Vigil Planning and Legacy Projects below)
(Includes up to 10 visits)
Bedside Doula Support (starting at $750)
Will you or your caregivers need support during the active stages of dying? We can provide short-term respite help for caretakers or simply come sit with the dying.
Includes:
24-hour on-call support via phone or text
Guidance in carrying out the Vigil Plan
3-6 weeks post-death, your Doula will meet with loved ones to reprocess the experience.
up to 5 days (2 hours per day) $ 750.
up to 5 days (4 hours per day) $1300.
up to 5 days (8 hours per day) $2400.
All personal and medical information will be held strictly confidential.
- What Doulas are NOT:
- Social workers/counselors
- Medical providers
- Physical caregivers
- Legal or Financial advisors.
- We can, however, help to identify resources for professionals in these specific areas.
The end of life deserves as much respect, beauty,
Anonymous
and care as the beginning.
Vigil Plan
What is a Vigil Plan?
A Vigil Plan is the blueprint of ideas created by the patient (or the family if the patient is unable to participate.) This blueprint will outline the type of physical and emotional support the patient wishes to receive in their final days of life. (The reason we do vigil planning is that during the final days of life, oftentimes patients are unable to speak or make decisions.)
Vigil plans include how they want the space to feel—the general atmosphere of the room—visitors that they would like present, and how their symptoms are managed. It is the patient’s vision of what they feel would be a “good death.” The plan will be grounded in the patient’s values and wishes. It will serve as a guide to family, friends, and caregivers during the final days.
Oftentimes a vigil plan includes rituals or ceremonies. These sacred experiences can be founded on your own religious or cultural beliefs, or simply constructed specifically to the wishes of the dying. Rituals are healing for the Spirit or the Soul. Ritual is medicine for the spiritual side of us in the same way that alternative medicine helps the body.
Ritual helps us navigate the transition, death, loss, and grief. It provides a supportive structure for the Spirit during times of big transformation.
When the patient is unable to participate in creating the plan, family members will meet and facilitate a Plan for which the doula will help create and advocate.
The Vigil Plan then follows the patient who created it, whether they spend their final days at home, in a hospital or nursing home, or in a hospice facility.
This directive helps their loved ones to understand what things are important to that person at the end of their life.
Legacy Project
What is a Legacy Project?
A Legacy Project essentially is an “inheritance” you leave behind for those you love. This inheritance has nothing to do with money and has no monetary value—it’s priceless. This is an emotional and spiritual inheritance. This work helps the dying focus on their legacy rather than life being lost.
Legacy Projects are tangible artifacts that help to connect family and friends to the deceased, long after the loved one has passed on. We could incorporate something simple such as letter writing, videos, or photo sessions; We could take it a step further with other creative endeavors such as memory or scrapbooks, interest projects like a recipe book of the dying person’s recipes, digital or physical books such as poetry or stories from the client.
Legacy projects are a beautiful way to honor a life and share your loved one with the world. Your legacy project will be unique to the patient and very personalized. They hold love and incredible meaning. We will work with the patient and loved ones to come up with a fitting legacy project reflecting the life and love of our client.
Legacy projects help the dying person to grieve as well as to process what is happening to them. Not only is it beneficial for the dying person, but the loved ones who will benefit from their project will also find comfort in them. The project will help them as they process their own grief.