Something to Think About

I am sharing this letter and my response because this family is not the only family that has carried memories, sometimes for years, of situations that occurred as their loved...

Often dying looks painful to the people watching. Dying is a struggle to get out of the body. There are sounds that ordinarily would indicate discomfort but, when a person...

Why make your mother’s remaining time be unhappy and with more discontent than is already there due to age and illness? Being old is hard work. Our thinking processes aren't...

So many factors affect the length of our labor to leave this world that it is imprudent to put a specific time frame on approaching death. The closest we can...

At 8:17pm she took one more breath and then at 8:18 there was one more which I describe as hot caramel pouring onto vanilla ice cream. It was the most...

What I have discovered is that a family member dying can bring a family together. It can be their finest moment of closeness and comfort. But for other families it...

We cannot put a number on how long our last experience will be. No one, doctors included, can be so specific as to say 6 months, 3 weeks or 24...

We can be as much at a loss when our pet is dying as we are when a person is dying but there doesn’t seem to be the support and...

What is the aim of a life review? As a caregiver my aim is not to direct a life review but to be a presence, a listener, and a friend....

Hospice can not take the experience and sadness of a loved one dying away. Our goal is to help the family create a sacred experience, to help their loved one...

The hours before actual death is very scary, a "I don't know what to do" time, for anyone present. Someone who knows the normal natural way a person dies can...

If the signs are there, get the referral and let a hospice professional determine if Hospice is appropriate. Three things I look for to tell me if it is time...

It is certainly not within our role to act if a person, in the pain of the moment, wants help in ending their life. In the “pain of the moment”...

Be the best hospice you can possibly be, provide the highest quality of care with the most compassionate, caring staff your area has to offer. Build a reputation within the...

When living with a life threatening illness we are eating for two---our physical body and our disease. In most cases the disease eats before we do. If we don’t eat,...

There are other signs of approaching death that indicate a person with a disease (at any age) has weeks to live...

My message throughout all this time has been to educate, educate, educate. Educate anyone who will listen about how people die. To help people understand how death comes, what it...

...Fortunately, I suppose, my mother is now bed-bound and we were able toget Hospice to help out, so she now fits the bill for a 'model patient'... but itstill seems...

As we get older, life presents us with different challenges. We adapt to them in the same way we have lived our life and dealt with all the challenges in...

From the moment of a diagnosis of a life threatening illness we begin grieving. We grieve not just the eventual losses that come with serious illness but the approaching death...

There have been many changes in hospice care since it began. Some for the better, some not so much. What I am suggesting as representing a “good” hospice is becoming...