Watching a loved one succumb to illness is one of the hardest experiences any human can ever go through.  We are lucky enough that we live in a world that is continually progressing in the field of medicine to lengthen and better our lives.  But, for far too many, the end comes too soon.  Thankfully hospice services have become widespread to help people navigate these painful and confusing times.  The Hospice Foundation of American puts it beautifully as they state,

“Grief is often overlooked, misunderstood and undervalued in terms of its impact on individuals and society. HFA strives to inform people of their options when they are facing a life-limiting illness, how hospice can help make the journey easier, and how to cope with grief.”  One hospice center in Northern Ohio is finding ways to make their patients precious time memorable with the help of some drones.

The Hospice of the Western Reserve understands that when a family calls them they are not giving up, they are choosing to find a way to make what time they have left with their loved one as comfortable, dignified, and meaningful as possible.  Their mission statement reads, “Hospice of the Western Reserve provides palliative and end-of-life care, caregiver support, and bereavement services throughout Northern Ohio. In celebration of the individual worth of each life, we strive to relieve suffering, enhance comfort, promote quality of life, foster choice in end-of-life care, and support effective grieving.”  They understand that one way of achieving this goal is through bringing joy to their families by allowing them to relive some of their fondest memories or see something they had always wanted to but never had the chance.

For someone like Jim Plescia it was a chance to revisit a bucket list destination.  In 2009 he and his wife Suzanne went on a trip to Italy with some of their friends.  It was one of the greatest adventures of their lives, giving Jim a chance to retrace some of his family roots.  A few years later Jim was diagnosed with a rare brain disorder that effects his speech, vision, balance, swallowing, and mobility called progressive supranuclear palsy.  There is no cure for this disorder, and for Jim it has progressed to where his wife reached out to Western Reserve to help her care for him in their home.  Suzanne knew that one way to keep her husband’s spirits lifted, her own as well, was to reminisce about the time they spent in Italy.

This is why the Western Reserve contacted an organization called The Flight To Remember Foundation, a non-profit service that uses drones to bring joy to people in hospice care.  The program was set up by Tom and Ashley Davis, owners of a drone company that focuses on standard drone photography for things like real estate and other commercial operations.  With their commercial success Tom and Ashley knew they could help bring joy to hospice patients with their drones.  Ashley said, “Our participants and their families select a location that is meaningful to them.  Our pilots will go to these special locations and fly their drone, capturing breathtaking views from heights up to 400ft.  We then create a video for our participants, who can watch it comfortably while resting in their bed, surrounded by loved ones.”

The drone videos that are orchestrated and edited by The Flight To Remember Foundation serve as life enriching moments for people reaching their end of days.  Collaborating with Western Reserve, the foundation was able to hire a drone operator in Italy to capture footage of the Plescia’s favorite part of their trip, a village in Sicily called Godarno where Jim’s family was from.  Once the pilot collected all the footage with his drone, he was able to send it electronically to  The Flight To Remember Foundation where they edited it into a video for Jim and Suzanne.

The resulting video was a 7 minute trip back to a place filled with love and joy for the couple.  They were surrounded by people they love.  A local restaurant donated a lovely Italian meal.  Wine was abundant.  And for everyone who was there they were reminded of a time when life was good.  They got to embrace those memories, feeling like they were right there in Godarno all over again.  For Jim, speech has become almost impossible.  But the video captured by the drone elicited such joy for him that he beamed and called out “Yyyyeah!” as Suzanne stood over his shoulder recalling memories with him.

Many people fear that calling hospice means that you have given up on life.  But it is far from that.  It is a way of embracing the life you have lived and the time you have left.  It is amazing to think that a modern tool like a drone can now enrich the hospice journey for people.  As Ashley said, “It is a time where there’s not a lot of positive going on, and they get this entire thing that helps with that whole process.  They can watch it over and over and over. It brings them comfort and peace.  It’s another non pharmacological intervention. They can watch that video and it brings them back to the place where they weren’t having these challenges.”

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