Testimony for Hillview
A Big Thank You.
In march 2018 , Our father had a serious heart attack , Our father was unaware , It was a silent heart attack , and for 2 weeks our Father continued to live his life and care for his mokos .
During these 2 weeks, our father started to struggle with his breathing, but he did not want to bother us, I think, he hoped it would go away.
2 weeks latter Dad showed up at our home, short of breath and struggling to get up the steps. We rang 111 straight away.
Ambulance came and transferred Dad to Te Kuiti Hospital. Within an hour, Dad was transferred to Waikato Hospital; He was experiencing another Heart Attack.
Once in Waikato Hospital, and tests were done on Dad, I was removed from Dad’s bedside, and was given the worst news of my life.
Dads heart had a large clot in it and all the arteries around the heart had died, Dads heart was beating at least than 20%.
My heart broke for Our dad , when he received the news , The look on his face, the fear and dad saying to the Doctor, “ Oh well Doc , How long have I got 2 , 3 days? I’ll just see what happens.” Then Dad was looking at me saying, “Them’s the breaks my daughter.” I’ll remember for the rest of my life.”
From Waikato, we transferred to Te Kuiti, and we stayed there for over a month. In this time Dad’s condition worsened, but we were grateful, Dad was still with us.
Our family made a decision that Dad would reside at Hillview Rest Home Te Kuiti, A very hard, difficult and heart breaking decision , because we were unable to care for our Dad ourselves , We had to work .
The first few weeks at Hillview, was difficult, Dad was in denial and scared, Dad did not want to be there.
Our family, Dad’s mokos, son in law, number 1 Daughter in law and myself visited Dad on a daily basis , at least 4 times a day and night to comfort him .
Dad’s older sister drove 3 hours twice a month, for 8 months to be with Dad.
Dad’s Son, Grand- daughter and great granddaughter, travelled 4 times from Australia also in the 8 months, during Dad’s sickness to be with him.
The staff off Hillview rest home right across the board were awesome support, while our family travelled along side of Dad throughout his end of life treatment.
Some weeks were easy and others were a struggle .There were a few visits back and forth to Te Kuiti Hospital until Dad said, “No more.”
Dad said he wanted to go “Home” and the place Dad called home was Hillview.
Therefore, that is what we did. Dad stayed at Hillview. The treatment and care he received from Hillview staff turned our Dad’s life around.
Dad started to improve. Dad spent a lot of time in the lounge. A very special lady named Kim is responsible for this department.
Our family cannot thank Kim enough for her hard work and caring she gave to Dad.
Kim made Dad feel comfortable and dad started interacting with everyone to the best that he could.
Dad was playing Housie, He would win a chocolate fish and then sleep for the rest of the housie; He was funny.
Dad would find Kim every morning on his electric wheelchair and say
“Girl can you read me the paper please?” and Kim would patiently and caringly read the paper to Dad.
It started getting hard for Dad to think and carry on a conversation and Kim noticed this. So she had Dad rock painting. These rocks we would bring from our Garden at home.
Dad was so proud and so were we of him.
Once rocks were complete, Dad would distribute his rocks out to our Family, as gifts (Taonga), along with small canvases with Dads hand print, name and date on. These gifts we will all treasure for the rest of our lives. Unbeknown to us, those were the last gifts we would receive from Dad, as he passed 3 days later.
To Kim, from our family, we cannot thank her enough. Without her excellent work at Hillview, we would never have had these special treasures that we are finding comforting today and always.
Hillview gave Dad quality of life, comfort, and most off all peace of mind to our family; Eight months more quality time than we expected and will forever be grateful for.
Therefore, to the Manager of Hillview, we thank him very much. His staff have done Hillview proud Thank you.
Mahinarangi Davis