When a young Mexican man showed up at Johnson City Medical Center recently suffering from terminal cancer, it presented the Mountain States Hospice team with an unusual challenge.

“We received a consult from the hospital for a 27-year-old Mexican male being treated there who had a terminal form of cancer,” said Jennifer Skaggs, director of Hospice, adding that the man’s name could not be released due to federal privacy rules. “He spoke no English, had no money and was given only a few weeks to live. The first thing he said when we told him that his condition was terminal was that he wanted to see his mother back in Mexico City.”

Unfortunately, the young man’s mother had died a week earlier, and the man’s brother – the only relative with him in the United States – hadn’t yet told him because of his cancer battle. The young man also had no documentation and no funds for a trip home to Mexico.

“At hospice, we focus on quality of life rather than quantity for patients whose conditions are terminal and the quantity is minimal,” Skaggs said. “For this young man, there was no cure and the quality of his last days rested on getting him back home to visit his mother’s grave and be with the rest of his family.”

So Skaggs and members of the team, such as Hospice Admissions Coordinator Kay Arnold, started working tirelessly to find a way to get the man home. Jill Grayson with the Mountain States Office of Community and Government Relations went to work on getting the patient documentation to leave the country while JCMC Team Members, such as Registered Nurse Mike Walls – who was the patient’s primary nurse – did all they could to physically prepare the man for the trip.

Skaggs contacted Catholic Charities, which has a local representative, and they immediately got to work to raise the money for a plane flight back to Mexico City for the patient and his brother. She then contacted Wilson Pharmacy, who donated the medical equipment the young man would need for the trip.

“There were a lot of factors involved in trying to get this young patient back home as quickly as possible,” Skaggs said. “There was a lot of leg work and prep work involved.”

The Hospice team also had to make arrangements on the Mexican side of the border to ensure the patient would have medical assistance once he arrived home. A physician was lined up to take over his care once he flew into Mexico City.

“What was so amazing about this was how grateful the patient and his brother were. They were surprised so many people came out to help them, because they didn’t know anyone here,” Skaggs said, adding that the brothers were hesitant to accept help, especially in the form of money. “Each time we tried to give them actual cash to help while we were preparing for the trip, they refused it. They just wanted to go home.”

Skaggs said the more people who heard about the young man’s situation, the more help they received. It took them just about a week from the time they met the young man to get him on a plane to Mexico City, where he lived for five weeks before just recently passing away.

“It was a blessing to be a part of this story,” Skaggs said, adding that though there was a communication barrier between her and the patient, she felt moved by him. As she sent him off from the airport, the young man turned to her, smiled and gave a thumbs-up. “At the airport, he didn’t even look like the same person we had first met. He looked so happy. I’ll never forget him.”