Something to Think About

Someone has to have the courage to say “We’ve done the best we can. We can’t fix you. Let us help you have some quality time”.

Tell her honestly what you are feeling and ask for help. Just FYI: she can sign on for hospice and if she felt she needed to go to the emergency...

When doctors and healthcare professionals place a number on how long someone has to live they are doing that person a disservice.

What to do? First, look at the wording you wrote to me "could be dying." Actually, everyone is dying. Everyday we are one step closer to the end of our life. You're...

 Know that all of these signs of approaching death, whether indicating months or weeks, are just guideposts. Some people will show all of them...

First, what is meant by “dying person”? In the months before death most people really don’t believe they are dying. “Other people die, not me. There will be a cure,...

Our children are not supposed to die before we do. I cannot think of any grief more intense than watching our child deteriorate before our eyes. We grieve their dying...

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...

Our job as an end of life specialist is to address the elephant in the room, to be direct and honest in the gentlest way possible. We are not doing...

There are many of the same circumstances with today’s coronavirus as we faced with  HIV/AIDS in the early years— lack of medical knowledge, lack of guidance, and fear. I think...

Isolation from others is teaching me this about my self ——- I do a lot for others, for their thoughts of me, why else do I wear makeup? Get dressed?...

...If an adult knows at some point in their disease progression that they aregoing to die (and they do know whether they share that knowledge withothers or not) why should...

You have to walk the walk before you can talk the talk. Learn from your patient/family interactions. At the same time read everything you can get your hands on...

Dementia isn’t a terminal illness in that it doesn’t have a limited prognosis. It is like dying from old age, it takes longer. Alzheimer’s, or any form of dementia, is...