H is for Hospice: ...and How in the Heck Did I Get Here Anyway?

Rochelle Gianino's hospital chart read like a medical textbook: Asthma, Edema, Fibromyalgia, Gouty Arthritis, Osteoporosis, and Renal Insufficiency, but when a Social Worker, an RN, and a Chaplain walked into her house with grim news, it started to sink in. Rochelle was chronically ill.

After a complicated bout with pneumonia, Rochelle was diagnosed with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease and placed under hospice care where experts worked to make her comfortable and suggested she begin keeping a journal. Thinking her life was ending soon, Rochelle poured her heart out, leaving no stone unturned. With an honest and charming voice, Rochelle shares the essays she created during that time frame and injects humor into even the most awkward situations as she describes her life experiences both before and after facing a terminal diagnosis. After struggling through eighteen months of hospice care, Rochelle discovered her misdiagnosis and began the road to recovery and a new appreciation for life.

"On a journey towards death, Rochelle Gianino is open and honest in sharing her life experiences. Her stories are painful, poignant, and humorous. This book is an insightful collection of essays about first learning how to die then instead learning how to live with a chronic illness."

-Shelly Schneider, LCSW, Licensed Clinical Social Worker