Sharon Lucas

Jody Lucas Berglund 1975
James William Lucas 1978

I graduated from Stanford then USC. I've been in Healthcare since 1980 specializing in end of life care. I openened a hospice for AIDS and cancer patients, the first of its kind in a skilled nursing facility in CA in 1988 and ran it for 5 1/2 yrs. It was a life changing experience. I continued to work in hospice and eventually worked at Hoag Hospital in Newport Beach in 2000 and created an end of life program from neonates to the elderly including their Palliative Medicine program which won the circle of life award from the AMA in 2005. Due to the death of my mother and grandmother in 2001 I needed to be closer to my brother and sister so in 2004 moved to Thousand Oaks and started my own consulting business. It has been thriving ever since. I have a contract with Catholic Healthcare West a 40 hospital system and put palliative care units in all their hospitals which I now monitor. I also work with a disease management company and wrote a training manual for nurse case managers who manage patients with cancer and other chronic diseases in their home telephonically. The manual and program won an award and the company is now selling the program to other companies for training so I'm keeping plenty busy. The highlight of my life was going to Africa Sept 2007, a life dream. I went to a Palliative Care conference, a 3 day safari and then volunteered in a hospital and hospice. I have since partnered with the palliative care team at the hospital and a parents support group of children with cancer and working to take social work students from USC back to Africa with me for internships and research. Africa turned my life inside out and my heart will forever be filled with the love I experienced there. I look forward to many more visits back.
Personally, I love my home in the hills, sharing long walks with my dog, yoga, reading and time with my family all of whom live nearby. I'm still searching for the love of my life but I've been a bit preoccupied.
I'm happy and healthy and feel blessed by my incredible work and even more incredible friends. Peace

I seem to recall paying John Begerow to disect my frog in Biology and getting caught by Mr. Lujan. Too bag because a nursing degree would come in really handy but I still can't disect a frog. Any my dusty guitar is still in my closet full of memories of weekend nights spent harmonizing and other things at my house. Good music good times, good friends.

Since my last update I've been back to Africa for a month last November spending a week in Nairobi volunteering at the hospital and 3 weeks traveling in Ethiopia with a friend. We took soccer balls for kids in orphanages or schools and visited 6 towns and had amazing experiences. I met 3 orphans in Lalibela a beautiful mountain town whose parents had died of AIDS and agreed to sponsor them monthly so they could stay together and be fed, clothed and go to school. I then spiritually adopted a 16 year old son Lezaw who I send to college. I met him while he cleaning my shoes. He left his family and rural village at 12 to get an education and his smile captured my heart. I have never been a parent but to read his emails filled with love and gratitude for me his mommy are indescribable. I head back to Africa in September to a conference in Namibia a trip with my friend Mina to the great Sand dune in Soussvlei, then on to the hospital in Nairobi for a week where I have been invited to stay at the home of a doctor friend and then to Ethiopia to see my son and work with a struggling cancer project. Africa has taken my heart by storm and I expect I'll be there yearly.
I am also founding a non profit organization called WE CAN: Wellness and Education for Children of African Nations. With this charity I hope to sponsor many more children with special health and educational needs especially young girls.

June 2011 Entered a PhD Program in Palliative Pace at Lancaster University in the UK. Its a distance learning program requiring one intensive a year. I've completed intensive one and submitted the first assignment an am on to our second module. Research takes place 2013, Dissertation writing 2014 and graduation expected 2015 at the age of 60.