Hospice Care

When the debilitating cell disease that had plagued their daughter since birth began last year to stop her heart for several minutes at a time, Dawn and Stephen Murphy turned to home hospice care. Hospice helped with both the practical and emotional aspects of caring for a 6-year-old child with a terminal illness. Hospice nurses made sure Kayla was comfortable in her Havre de Grace home. Counselors helped the parents cope with the possibility of death. "We don't want her to be in a sterile hospital environment," said Kayla's mom, Dawn.

Charlie Zill leans forward and adjusts the lines to his oxygen supply before slipping a CD into his laptop. "This is a good one," he says softly. Up pops a video of Zill, the long-time fixture at Orioles games, doing his "Zillbilly" dance in full cornpone regalia (overalls, straw hat, fake teeth, orange fiddle) as John Denver's "Country Boy" blares over the Camden Yards PA system during the seventh-inning stretch. Now here's footage of him joking with Orioles fans and doing magic tricks, and what you notice right away is how everyone lights up when they see him. When the video ends, though, Zill's smile fades.

Former Tigers and Reds manager Sparky Anderson , 76, has been placed in hospice care at his Thousand Oaks, Calif., home for complications resulting from dementia. Anderson's family said in a statement Wednesday that they appreciate the support and kindness that friends and fans have shown throughout the Hall of Famer's career and retirement. No further details were released. •After being passed over for the Cubs' managerial job, Hall of Famer Ryne Sandberg will not be back with the organization next season, declining an invitation to return to manager at Triple-A Iowa.

The family of longtime Orioles umpires attendant Ernie Tyler is suing a Baltimore nursing home, claiming that a doctor at the facility cut off life-sustaining care to Tyler without authorization. The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in Baltimore Circuit Court, alleges that a day after Tyler checked into Genesis ElderCare Long Green Center in February 2011, his attending physician, Kenneth Lindyberg, "terminated necessary medical care, including antibiotics, blood products, medical tests, and medications without Mr. Tyler's permission and without the knowledge or permission of his family.

Archbishop William D. Borders has entered hospice care, a spokesman for the Archdiocese of Baltimore said Wednesday. Borders, 96, spiritual leader of the archdiocese from 1974 to 1989, has been diagnosed with colon cancer. He moved recently from the Mercy Ridge retirement community in Lutherville to the Stella Maris Hospice in Timonium. Archbishop Edwin F. O'Brien has asked area Catholics for prayers. - Baltimore Sun staff

No one likes to think about advanced illness but it's something most of us will have to face eventually. There's an incredible resource in our community that provides comfort, dignity and respect to all those coping with a complex illness. It's Hospice of the Chesapeake. November is National Hospice and Palliative Care Month, a time to reach out to our community to raise awareness about the compassionate care that Hospice of the Chesapeake provides. One of the most important messages we convey is that hospice care helps patients and families focus on living.

I'VE JUST returned from the post office with my first sheet of the new first-class stamp honoring hospice care."The United States Postal Service receives about 40,000 requests a year for commemorative stamps," said Barry Riggins, Annapolis postmaster, "so this is a very selective process. We hope this stamp helps to raise awareness of hospice service."The stamp, introduced to this region Feb. 10, depicts a white house against a background of green trees and lawn. A sweeping path draws you "home."

Nobody won the advertised $1 million at the Hospice Services of Howard County's hole-in-one contest last weekend, but $13,000 was raised for the nonprofit group based in East Columbia.John Maybee of Ellicott City was among those who paid $1 a ball for a chance at the $1 million. One of his shots dropped straight into the hole in Saturday's semifinals, but he couldn't repeat the feat during Sunday's million-dollar final round."I wish I could reverse the days," said Maybee, a senior engineer at RWD Technologies Inc. and a frequent golfer.

KUDOS TO Charlene Cohen, wife of Greater Baltimore Medical Center's Director of the Cancer Center Dr. Gary Cohen, for doing such a great job chairing the GBMC 30th anniversary Celebration at Camden Yards.She was pleased that despite terrible weather, there was such a good turnout which helped them raise more than $140,000 for the Hospice of Baltimore's new inpatient facility, the Gilchrist Center for Hospice Care, scheduled to open next spring.Others who helped with this fund-raiser were Towson attorney and GBMC Foundation Board Member Carolyn Thaler; president the GBMC auxiliary Ellen Hensby; GBMC volunteer Anne Haley, who chaired the silent auction which offered some pretty fabulous items, thanks to help from Diana Clarke and Connie Pitcher.

The family of longtime Orioles umpires attendant Ernie Tyler is suing a Baltimore nursing home, claiming that a doctor at the facility cut off life-sustaining care to Tyler without authorization. The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in Baltimore Circuit Court, alleges that a day after Tyler checked into Genesis ElderCare Long Green Center in February 2011, his attending physician, Kenneth Lindyberg, "terminated necessary medical care, including antibiotics, blood products, medical tests, and medications without Mr. Tyler's permission and without the knowledge or permission of his family.

World War II veteran John Dicks, 86, has already given his country so much. And yet he finds that he wants to give more. The Baltimore resident volunteers two days a week at the Loch Raven VA Community Living & Rehabilitation Center, a facility within the VA Maryland Health Care System, providing rehabilitation to Maryland veterans. "I generally work five hours a day," Dicks said. "I work in the therapy department. We give them exercise. We give them therapy to get them ready to go home.

Lynly Safran McCoog, a homemaker who was a Lutherville school volunteer, died of breast cancer Nov. 13 at the Gilchrist Center for Hospice Care in Towson. She was 43 and lived in Lutherville. Born Lynly Safran in Toms River, N.J., she was the daughter of Robert Safran Sr. and Kathryn Nicholl Safran. She was raised in York, Pa., and was a 1987 graduate of York Suburban High School. She earned a bachelor of arts in English at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. She met her future husband, Kevin J. McCoog, a graduate of Loyola University Maryland who works in software sales.

Maryterese Streett, Bel Air's unofficial matriarch and historian and among its best known residents, died Saturday night at a hospice near Bel Air. She would have been 82 on Sept. 4. Owners of Boyd & Fulford Drugs on Main Street, Mrs. Streett and her husband, M. Eugene Streett, became known to generations of Bel Air resident's as the town's First Couple. Under their ownership, Boyd and Fulford, which opened in 1892 and is the town's oldest business, became a place to go for everything from romantic and medical advice to news about all the comings and goings in the Harford County seat, not to mention who was doing what in local politics.

There won't be a big news story about Gregory Seagle's death. And that's a shame, because if there was ever anyone on this planet who deserved to be publicly remembered for how he lived, it was Greg, who died last week from cancer at 61. Greg was a writer and a teacher. It's hard to say which undertaking he liked better; it's easy to say how talented he was at both. But actually, the two careers were intertwined because Greg taught writing. He was an adjunct and then a lecturer at Towson University, with few benefits and little job security.

Dudley Clendinen relished nothing more than telling a great story — even the story of his impending death. A journalist and author who wrote for The New York Times and had once served as an editor for The Baltimore Sun, Mr. Clendinen died Wednesday at Baltimore's Joseph Richey House hospice of complications from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. He was 67. He chronicled his 18-month struggle with the condition commonly known as Lou Gehrig's disease on Baltimore public radio station WYPR in a series titled "Living with Lou: Dudley Clendinen on a Good, Short Life.

By coincidence, Dan Rodricks ' column on the ruling by the Maryland Court of Appeals labeling pit bulls as "inherently dangerous" coincided with the untimely death of Alan Jay Eidelberg, a longtime Baltimore veterinarian in the Govans community. Mr. Eidelberg was the one-man operation also known as the York Road Animal Hospital. He died in hospice care April 30 at the age of 59 after a short battle with brain cancer. In a beautiful tribute prepared by his family and friends that appeared in The Sun, Mr. Eidelberg was praised for the compassionate, first-rate care he gave his patients, for his expert skills as a diagnostician and for his generosity in treating pets whose owners had difficulty paying their bills.

There won't be a big news story about Gregory Seagle's death. And that's a shame, because if there was ever anyone on this planet who deserved to be publicly remembered for how he lived, it was Greg, who died last week from cancer at 61. Greg was a writer and a teacher. It's hard to say which undertaking he liked better; it's easy to say how talented he was at both. But actually, the two careers were intertwined because Greg taught writing. He was an adjunct and then a lecturer at Towson University, with few benefits and little job security.

Hospice of Baltimore and Hospice Services of Howard County recently united their organizations to broaden the Baltimore agency's service to the greater Baltimore area.The Baltimore group is licensed by the state and certified by Medicare to serve residents of Baltimore City and Baltimore, Harford and Howard counties.Hospice Services of Howard County has served county residents for 18 years and will continue to operate from its headquarters in Columbia, providing home-based hospice care. Hospice of Baltimore's Gilchrist Center for Hospice Care will provide inpatient hospice care.

Jeanne T. Welsh, a homemaker who enjoyed painting, died of congestive heart failure March 31 at the Gilchrist Center for Hospice Care. The Pinehurst resident was 84. Born Jeanne Tribull in Baltimore and raised in Govans, she was a 1944 Eastern High School graduate. She became a secretary at a brokerage, Merrill, Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Beane, where she met her future husband, Joseph Francis Welsh Jr. A watercolor artist, she studied under Fritz Briggs at the Schuler School of Fine Arts.

Virginia Whittlesey, a retired teacher and community volunteer, died of congestive heart failure March 29 at Gilchrist Center for Hospice Care. The former Roland Park resident was 90. Born Virginia Markell King and raised in Bolton Hill, she was a 1940 graduate of the Bryn Mawr School and earned a degree in early-childhood education from Vassar College. She made her debut at the Bachelors Cotillon. During World War II she worked at a day care center for children of defense workers.