Tom McCarthy has nothing but great things to say about EveryStep's Kavanagh House on 56th Street in Des Moines. However, he says he could do with seeing less of the hospice house.
Tom, who supports EveryStep through giving to the United Way, has dealt with more than his fair share of loss in the last few years. But, he says, the Kavanagh House and its staff were there for him and his family on every step of the journey.
Here is Tom's story in his own words:
In the last 2.5 years I've seen more of EveryStep and Kavanagh House than I would like to ... I say that I've seen more than I'd like to because the reason why we're there - not at all about the experience there.
My mom was in there, my sister-in-law was in there, and then my brother just recently was in there ... The experience has been great. All three times. As great as something like that can be.
Jody McCarthy - 1939-2023
Two months before my mom passed away, she’d been having some health struggles - nothing like your traditional older person things - just some kind of unique issues. And we didn't know what was going on.
She was always the sweetest person … then she quit eating … and and she was just in pain, uncomfortable, sad. Things I've never seen my mom like in my life … We then determined the path we were going was probably more to the palliative care than cure.
It was kind of this comfort of knowing that what she was experiencing wasn't unique. It was kind of normal, and what we were seeing was fairly normal. It gave you peace that maybe her body had decided this long before she or we had decided to.
Mom was there for a couple days. I don't remember how long and it was very comforting with everybody there … and the peace that came with all that when we got to Kavanagh.
Kris McCarthy 1974-2023
Then, six months later, my sister-in-law - who had been battling cancer for two years - she left the hospital and we thought that she maybe had a day that she was gonna be in hospice. She said she's done. She can't do it anymore, just all the treatments and everything. It was just, she just couldn't do it anymore, and she was ready.
She got to Kavanagh and ended up being there for about a month and a half.
When the end came, it was, again, the comfort of knowing the quality of care there. My brother got to know another guy there whose wife was dying as well. He and John got to be, you know, friendly there. They saw each other a lot, and they actually connected again a few months later after both their wives had passed. And it was the closest thing that my little brother had to any sort of grief counseling …
John McCarthy – 1970-2026
(John) went through a lot of health issues over the next two years. Basically, what I tell people is that when his wife died, a big part of his heart died, too … He had a couple heart issues and major heart surgeries over the next two years … In January, another infection set in and he became very disoriented and confused and they determined they couldn't do anything with the infection anymore. They couldn't do surgery on his heart again.
When we talked to the heart surgeon, he said that there was really nothing more they could do and we need to look at palliative care. When we said that, it was like a weight was lifted off my brother's shoulders. He went from being kind of confused to being very coherent, very aware, not hallucinating anymore. He was pretty adamant that he wanted to go to Kavanaugh.
When he got to Kavanaugh … you could just see kind of this, this peace came across him. He was alert and awake again. And when he came in, somebody there, one of the nurses said: “John, I remember you. John, you were with Kris”.
That was two years ago. How do you remember? … She actually remembered this other person that he had a connection with. And that, again, let us know we were in the right place.
I'll tell you what I've told anybody who has ever asked me about hospice and Kavanagh House … it’s the idea that you when see somebody who's in a hospital, they are a patient; when they go to Kavanaugh, it's this instant change from a patient to a person again.
Whether they're awake and alert, whether they are conscious or not, I think there's a really simple thing that you folks do there. You take them out of a hospital gown, and you give them a shirt. They cut it down the back, drape it over the person like hospital gown, but you can't tell. So, it just looks like John's sitting there in a nice polo shirt or t-shirt. It takes this bad situation from this person suffering in a hospital and changes them back into a person.”
To learn more about the multiple options for giving to EveryStep, visit our Foundation webpage.
