Nice To Meet You!

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Hi, my name is Jes Street and I'm a registered nurse in Central Florida. I am a Certified Hospice and Palliative Pediatric Nurse (CHPPN) and I am on the Hospice and Palliative Nurses Association Exam Development Committee. This means that I assist in writing the exam for incoming potential CHPPN certificants.  

I have been interested in pediatric hospice and palliative care since prior to becoming a nurse, when I worked at a large children's hospital doing patient transportation. I quickly came to realize that my favorite unit in the entire hospital was the oncology unit. Children were often there long term and because of that it looked unlike any of the other units. Rooms were lived in, not sterile. Gifts, stuffed animals, drawings and photos on the walls, it was welcomed and despite what it was, the staff and many of the residents seemed to be in good spirits, even joyful! I looked forward to going there and even though it was sad, it abounded with HOPE. 

Many people assume that when the word "Hospice" enters the conversion, hope is lost. But that is never the case. While hope for a cure is lost, that hope is shifted to other things, such as hope for quality family time, hope for beautiful memory making, hope for comfort and for the symptoms that have existed sometimes for years to be relieved. 

I know that no one wants to talk about it, think about it, but the truth is that over 42,000 children die every year in the United States. While we can't make a difference for every single one of them, we can do our absolute best to make a difference in the lives of the ones lost due to life limiting illnesses and conditions such as genetic and chromosomal disorders, metabolic disorders, cancer, prematurity, neurological disorders, heart and lung conditions, and more. 

At this time there exists only a small handful of dedicated pediatric hospice inpatient units, so currently when a child is in need of crisis or critical care that can't be managed in a home setting, their only options in the majority of the country are to go back to the hospital where they've often spent a large portion of their lives, or to a general inpatient unit with the vast majority of the patients being adult and geriatric. This is something that I'd like to see change, starting with Butterfly House.