I want to thank everyone at First Choice for helping my mom during the last months of her life. This company is a true gem, and its staff is an extraordinary group of dedicated and highly professional people.
My mother had a prolonged battle with cancer. The last three months were the most difficult: she was running out of treatment options. We had to decide how to keep her comfortable and pain-free, and whether we can handle the exceedingly complicated care at home.
By extreme luck, a few months earlier someone mentioned the First Choice Healthcare. I decided to contact them and this was the best decision I could make for mom.
Within days of my initial call every single step needed to set up care was complete. Irina, the hospice director, Dr. Homsey, MD and the nurse came to our home for assessment and determined that we can keep mom at home with additional help. The amount of this additional help (which came on top of home care already provided by Medicare) increased significantly. All services, including PCA, nurse and social worker came within days, supplies and equipment were delivered within hours of request. But most importantly, the quality of care and the amount of compassion was just amazing. Everyone who took care of mom was very sensitive and sympathetic with her, had a lot of experience and flexibility to accommodate emergencies.
When mom’s illness progressed and home care was not enough, Irina helped us to find a good quality nursing facility close to home. My dad, who is 88, was at first very reluctant to place my mom in a nursing home, but Irina’s compassionate conversations finally convinced him that now this was a better choice in mom’s condition.
The nursing home turned out much nicer than we expected. First Choice continued to provide care (on top of the nursing home’s normal care) and this was simply invaluable. Hospice stuff visited mom 5-6 times a week. They were always available on the phone and even made sure that my dad was ok while I had to go back home for a short time. Irina was checking with her stuff daily (even when on vacation). She was in touch with the Medical Director of the nursing home and gave me updates frequently.
This care continued with absolutely unwavering quality for two more months – until my mom passed away.
I feel extremely grateful to First Choice for everything they have done for us. We would have so much more stress on top of our grief, if it was not for them. Their kindness and absolute reliability made a huge difference in how we experienced last months of my mom’s life.
Our especial gratitude is to Irina, Svetlana, Yuriy, Tatiana, Roman – wonderful human beings.