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        The pace is decidedly slower in this part of the hospital.

Judy Schneider is the manager of the hospice program at St. Elizabeth Medical Center North. (Tony Jones photo) | ZOOM |

        On 3D, a wing of St. Elizabeth Medical Center North in Covington, patients aren't rushed to tests or X-rays.

        There's a lounge where children can watch videos. And a kitchen where families can cook a favorite meal while a bread machine wafts delicious aromas through the ward.

        Despite the homey touches, knows some people find it difficult to come to the in-patient hospice unit.

        “Hospice to a lot of people is so final,” she says. “And that's very hard for them. I think we're a very death-denying society. We have to realize it's going to happen to us, and yeah, we can fight it for so long. But there comes a time when we need to get our house in order.”

        As nurse manager for the hospice program of St. Elizabeth Medical Center North in Covington, Judy Schneider directs a team that helps people prepare for death.

        She oversees nurses, nurse aides, social workers, chaplains and a volunteer coordinator who work with patients with six months or less to live, and their families.

        The program is mainly home-based. The eight-bed hospital unit is for short stays only, such as when patients' symptoms need more attention than can be provided at home, or when family caregivers need a few days respite.

        About 65 patients are in the program at any given time.

        In a typical month, 40 to 45 of them will die.

        If that sounds depressing, you'll see no evidence of it in Judy Schneider's upbeat attitude. She believes strongly in the value of hospice.

        “It can be a beautiful experience,” she says.

        She has seen patients hold death at bay as they await the birth of a grandchild, or a wedding anniversary.

        She has seen jailed relatives afforded the chance to come to the hospital to say goodbye.

        She has seen people deal with issues that, in some cases, they have avoided for years, such as a dying man asking to see the brother with whom he's feuded so long nobody remembers why.

        If Judy Schneider seems suited to this work — and she is — perhaps it's because death became a familiar concept early in her life.

        On a Saturday morning more than 40 years ago, she ran up the stairs of her grandmother's house to see her great-grandmother, who had liver cancer. Alone in the room with her, Judy sat by the bed.

        “She looked up at me,” she says, “took my hand, closed her eyes.” And peacefully stopped breathing.

        Hospice as we know it today didn't exist then. But Judy's grandmother practiced a form of it, inviting ill relatives into her home in the last years of their lives. Several died there, surrounded by loved ones.

        Still, Judy never expected those experiences to affect her career choice. She became a stay-at-home mom, raising four children with her husband of 36 years, Justin. When their youngest started kindergarten in the late '70s, she went to college to become a nurse.

        She first worked in a St. Elizabeth cancer ward, which later added a hospice unit. When the cancer ward closed, Judy stayed with hospice.

        She has never regretted her career choice, though there are difficult days. As many as four deaths have occurred within 24 hours in the hospital unit. It happened once on a Christmas Eve.

        “We cry, and that's fine,” Judy says of her staff. “That's accepted around here. In fact, it's good.”

        But the staff is not preoccupied with death. “We're thinking about what we can do to help this family and this patient make the best of this time.”

        One such patient was Griffin Fisk, Judy's father, who had a rare skin cancer. He entered the hospice program five years ago. Judy's mother, Meriam, cared for him at home, with regular visits and support from hospice staff.

        With good pain management, Griffin's condition improved to the point that he and Meriam were able to take trips. Eventually, though, the disease weakened him.

        At 8:30 one morning, Judy got a call from her mother, who said, “You need to come. Your dad woke up and said, "I'm going to die today.' ”

        He passed away that afternoon, at home. Loved ones were present, including his daughter Judy, who knows better than most that hospice can be a beautiful experience.

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