Something to Think About
a blog on end of life
"In our death ignoring society, COVID has put death right in front of our faces. In modern time we haven't had to face this avalanche of dying..." Barbara Karnes, RN...
Most people working in the field of dying, death, and grieving know about "the little blue book," as it has come to be known. Many hospice and palliative care organizations...
When I was 16 years old, I was a nurse’s aide in a small hospital. In 1959, hospitals were more like nursing facilities are today; patients were often there for...
Sudden death by accident, suicide and certainly by violence intensifies those normal grief responses. Everything we feel with normal grief is as if we are being held under a magnifying...
“Birth and death are the only two universal experiences in the human condition.” So writes Barbara Karnes, RN who noticed, after her experience at the bedside of hundreds of people...
“Am I dying?” she asked.“We think so,” I said, touching her manicured fingernails. “I am here with you.” Later, she kept her eyes closed but opened them when we talked....
All of us are going to die someday. And most of us will have loved ones who will die from disease or old age before we do. In fact, some...
Longtime hospice nurse Barbara Karnes, for instance, advises those approaching their deaths to not put things off until a day or hour when they are feeling better. Assume, she suggests,...
