Something to Think About

a blog on end of life

We love sharing helpful info on our blog.

About the BK Team
Is Dying Different For Older People?

As for the “signs of what is to come” for someone who is young and dying, those signs are also the same for everyone, young and old. People dying from...

"Believers" and "Non-Believers" Facing End of Life?  Is There A Difference?

We human beings are complicated creatures. We approach death in the way we have approached living and according to our personality. Our belief systems are part of that living. Sometimes...

Helping A Family Decide Whether to End Life Support

If you have a good, amicable relationship then get them together and say, with caring in your heart, "I am going to tell you some things I have learned about...

Let's View Living as More Than the Quantity of Breaths We Take

I want the medical profession, the medical model we find in doctors’ offices and hospitals, to do everything possible to help me not only regain my health, but to return...

Medical Interventions on a  Body That Can’t Be Fixed

How tragic that none can come forward and say, "Your father is dying. Let's stop all these extras and keep him comfortable”. Family as well as many individual physicians do...

Do I Want FULL CODE or a NO CODE?

Medicine and medical technology can prolong our life but not indefinitely and it is generally at the expense of our quality of living. Or we can reframe how we think...

Our Personality Will Affect Our Dying Process

We cannot put a number on how long someone has to live. There are so many factors that affect the time of our gradual death that the closest anyone can...

Caregiving Is Love

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...

Winding Down as End of Life Approaches

When life has run its course (however many years it is) our body begins to "wind down" much like it “wound up” in the beginning...

I’m a Caregiver and I’m so Beat Up

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...

What Does Teaching End of Life Care Look Like?

I’ve always said I can teach anyone how to take care of someone who is dying, the physical, communication, supportive skills. It is the interpersonal, empathy, and heart skills that...

How Am I Going To Die?  When Will It Come?

I also thought as we get older that question tends to come out of hiding more easily. The older we are the more the question lies in the back of...

Embracing Another's Death as Beautiful

The more you learn about end of life, what happens, what it looks like, the less fear you will bring to the experience and with less fear you can get...

Dying Is About The Emotional, Communal Response

Dying isn’t about the disease a person has. It is about the emotional, communal response to the person dying from the disease. It doesn’t require medical intervention. It requires comfort...

NHPCO Hospice Innovator Barbara Karnes, RN explains the 3 Signs of Approaching Death from Disease or Old Age

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

Why Do Children Die

Unfortunately, children die. We are born, we experience, and then we die. That's the name of this game called life...

Making Sense of Last Words

What is normal is the person may be talking BUT they won’t be making sense. They may be talking to people you don’t see or hear. Yes, I believe our...

Do Children Die Differently?

There are signs that we look for that indicate a person who has entered the dying process has months, weeks, days, or hours to live BUT not everyone “plays by...

How Are You Doing With The Collective Grief We Are All Feeling?

I’ll say again we are a planet grieving. What does grief look like? Grief is an emotional expression. It comes out in the way we have learned to express our...

Trying To Understand Grief article by Dying Expert, Barbara Karnes, RN at BKBooks

Grief is whole bunch of normal emotions rolled up into a package we call grieving. It isn’t new emotions. It is our emotions. It is how we have handled everything...

When Is It Time To Say Goodbye? article by end of life expert, Barbara Karnes, RN

"When do we say our final goodbye to someone who is dying?" Barbara Karnes talks about how we say goodbye in stages. We say goodbye many, many times.  

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