Something to Think About

My hope in writing this blog is to draw our attention to the “unsung heroes” caring for their special person as end of life approaches, as well as to those caring...

I think a big part of grieving is loneliness. Loneliness for our person who has left us but also aloneness in our day to day activities...

...That caregivers put so much energy, time, love, and concern into taking care of their person that they can become blind to or just plain don’t want to see the...

We tend to live our lives like gerbils on a wheel, going round and round but really going nowhere. Day in and day out, same old, same old, fall into...

Why is the patient being discharged, you ask? Is it because the patient just didn’t decline as rapidly as expected? Yes, that can be the situation...

I knew all the signs of approaching death, of labor beginning. What I didn’t know was how much we don’t want to see those signs, and by not wanting to see them,...

Addressing the timelines of approaching death also neutralizes the false hope that our person will get better, that there is more time.

There is a huge void in our medical system that so many families living with dementia fall into. These families have a loved one too sick and require too much...

The elderly, after a fall or illness, often are not much interested in eating. If there are no other health issues, they gradually return to normal eating. In the meantime...

Dementia causing illnesses, by whatever name we classify them, are becoming more and more prominent. Dementia, and how to care for people with it, has become a big healthcare issue...

Dying is not a medical event. It is a social, communal event. Dying is not a time for procedures or medications. It is time for support, guidance and reassurance FOR...

In those last five months I tried for us to live in the present, to build good memories, to love, give and live in the moment...

Life puts us in challenging situations. Often times it is not where we want to be. Sometimes it seems we don’t have a choice...

By Your Side offers guidance in the area of making choices: cure, life sustaining, comfort care, making advanced directives, and funeral planning. It details signs of approaching death (what to look...

Getting the word to caregivers that there is such a thing as a support group may be challenging. You might talk with church groups, case managers, hospital discharge planners, and...

COPD is a very challenging disease. A patient can look and feel like they are dying right now and still feel that way 10 years later. Because of this it...

Treating people with a cold professionalism vs. treating them as children is either end of a spectrum of respect for a patient’s personhood. Cold professionalism can be as dehumanizing as...

The bottom line is that no one can possibly imagine the ongoing challenges of living with and caring for a person with dementia until they find themselves caring for a...

There is a saying, “Live each day as if it were your last.” It makes sense that the last day of our lives is the day we would want to...