Something to Think About

People don’t die like they do in the movies. Mom is not going not going to say some profound words, close her eyes and be dead...

The space between birth and death is the most important part of life YET we somehow go through the living part unaware. In a hurry, with a great deal of tension, and very little...

Our job as end of life workers is to educate. We walk a thin line. Our words can be heard and misunderstood so easily. They can be interpreted differently than...

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...

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...

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...

This has led me to think about what any of us can do for an acquaintance who has a serious illness or is caring for someone who has a serious...

What is the difference between what hospice provides and what the EOL Workers provide? Hospice services are more medically oriented. They also provide a variety of services that are non...

With Hospice you never know what you will find once you enter the home. Service can’t be time based. Visits have to be stay until the job is done and...

... if we would educate ourselves before we need the information, before someone we care about is dying, before we are faced with a life threatening illness, or before someone we...

I was Zooming with a hospice today for Q & A’s and the subject of not being able to use volunteers because of Covid came up. WHOA!!! What do you...

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

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...

Our frontline workers: nurses, nursing assistants, doctors, hospital employees, first responders, housekeeping, grocery, delivery, and transportation personnel, all people who are out front while most of us shelter in place,...

I am now writing this. Here is what I am thinking: The way I have lived my life up to now will probably be changed forever. How long physical distancing...

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?...

We do this all the time. We enter tense situations where people are frightened and unsure, with people who have never seen us before. This is what we do: We create...

Pain management is different in the last seven days because the body is not functioning in its normal way. Circulation, breathing, oxygen exchange are not happening properly so medications are...