Himani was suffering from cancer of the breast with brain metastatic. She was a teacher by profession and had a five-year-old daughter. Her husband works in an IT Company as a Senior Manager. She was from Uttar Pradesh and lived in Delhi with her husband and daughter.

The palliative home care team from CanSupport visited Himani for the first time on 4th October 2021. During that time, she was totally disoriented and could not communicate with the team. The team communicated with her husband to gather her past medical history.

Himani was diagnosed with cancer of the breast eight years ago. She went through an operation and chemotherapy and was getting along well post that but by September 2021 she began to forget things and would lose balance while walking and sitting. Therefore, the family took her to a hospital for a check up. The test result revealed that cancer had spread to her brain and had come to the fourth stage. The hospital referred her to CanSupport for palliative care. Himani’s husband connected with the team for palliative care at home. At that time Himani was still in the hospital and before she was discharged, she required some medical equipment support at home like a backrest, a wheel chair, an air mattress and an oxygen concentrator. Himani’s husband requested CanSupport’s home care team to provide this equipment so he could move his wife back home. The team made available all the equipment before Himani arrived home.

The team met Himani the same day she was discharged from the hospital and got home.

The team trained her husband so that he could also take care of his wife with symptom management at home. The dilemma was that Himani and her husband lived by themselves with their five-year-old daughter and Himani’s husband had to attend to work. The team from CanSupport suggested that they solicit support from their families. The team also intervened and spoke to their families to seek their support. Because of the encouragement by the palliative care team. Himani’s father and sister-in-law decided to stay with them so that they could watch after Himani when her husband was away at work.

The home care team also taught their house help on how to feed, sponge, change Himani’s position in bed and on other hygiene matters.

Himani’s situation was gradually deteriorating. She was slipping away and had stopped recognising things, people and could not communicate clearly. The team decided to break the bad news to the family as well as counselled them to spend and give as much time as was possible to Himani. The whole family rallied around Himani to allow her to spend her last few days peacefully.

Four days later, Himani passed away peacefully in the presence of her close family. After her passing, Himani’s husband visited CanSupport’s office to return the medical equipment that was provided by the team for Himani. He profusely thanked the team for helping him save lakhs of rupees by looking after his wife at home and for providing all the medical equipment as well as the care that was given to her. He said, “I was able to live through my stressful situation because of your guidance and support.”