Her name isn't Dorothy, she doesn't have a dog named ToTo, to our knowledge she doesn't own a pair of ruby red slippers and she can't click her heels together three times while thinking, "There's no place like home, there's no place like home, there's no place like home" and wake up in Kansas.  Nevertheless, this Hospice at Home patient desired to return to her childhood home in Western Kansas for one last visit before she died.  Her declining health prohibited the trip. 

Through the resourcefulness of her Social Worker, we were able to bring Kansas to her.  Contacting a family member in the patient's hometown, the Social Worker arranged for a video to be made of the town where she grew up.  The niece we spoke with caught the vision of what could be done to bring Kansas home to our patient and began the video process.

A few weeks after the request our patient received four DVDs from family and friends in Kansas.  As she viewed the DVDs, person after person looked back at her from her television and greeted her.  She responded with a greeting each time.  The niece had interviewed relatives and people our patient had grown up with as well as filmed childhood homes and local businesses.  She was able to film the patient's birth home, which had been purchased by a family member and relocated.  Going from room to room she narrated the video, stopping at a china cabinet to film some old family pictures.  Holding each picture up to the camera they talked about who was in the picture. One of the pictures was of the patient's brother who died some time ago.  The video included footage and narration of the various remodeling work that had taken place over the years.  On another video they visited our patient's husband's sister's house for Sunday dinner.  Our patient, through the lens of the video camera, joined the family for a wonderful "back home" dinner including the teenagers discussing how best to cut the cheesecake dessert into nine pieces without ever actually cutting it.  The family did a fantastic job of filming what was important to her, and it was as close to home as she could possibly be.