Something to Think About
a blog on end of life
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- All posts
- addiction
- advance directive
- alzheimers
- anticipation
- anticipatory grief
- Approaching Death
- assisted care
- assisted death
- Assisted Living
- bereaved
- Bereavement
- burnout
- cancer
- caregiver
- caregiver fatigue
- caregiver support
- caregiving at end of life
- children
- Clinician
- comfort care
- covid 19
- Death
- death and dying
- death cafe
- death call
- death care
- death doula
- death education
- death midwife
- death of a pet
- death ritual
- dementia
- dementia doula
- diagnosis
- Director of Education
- disease
- DNR
- doctors
- dying
- dying pet
- dying process
- Dynamics of Dying
- Eating or not eating
- elderly
- Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
- end of life
- end of life doula
- euthanasia
- family
- family caregiver
- father
- Fear
- Feeding
- Food
- Funeral
- gift
- graduating from hospice
- gratitude
- Grief
- Grief Counselor
- grief support
- Guilt
- Home Care
- home death
- home health
- home healthcare
- Hospice
- Hospice Blue Book
- hospice care
- hospice chaplain
- hospice education
- hospice end of life care
- hospice for pets
- hospice nurse
- hospice nurses
- hospice patient
- hospice physician
- Hospice Social Worker
- Hospice Staff
- hospice volunteer
- hospital
- How Do I Know You ?
- How Do I Know You? Dementia at the End of Life
- Hydration or dehydration
- infant death
- labor
- life limiting
- life support
- media
- Medicade
- Medicare
- medication
- medications
- memory care
- midwife
- moment of death
- morphine
- mother
- My Friend I Care
- narcotics
- New Rules For End Of Life Care
- No Code
- Not Eating
- nurse
- Nursing facility
- Nursing home
- nutrition
- Old Age
- older pet
- orientation
- oxygen
- pain
- pain at end of life
- pain management
- pain relief
- palliative care
- palliative sedation
- pandemic
- personality
- Pet death
- Pet illness
- physician
- podcast
- POLST
- prepare for death
- quality of life
- religion
- Retirement Home
- sacred
- self care
- sleep
- Social Worker
- spanish grief literature
- stages of grief
- Suicide
- Supervisors
- support
- terminal
- terminal agitation
- terminal diagnosis
- terminal restlessness
- The Eleventh Hour
- The Final Act of Living
- This Is How People Die
- Time
- Time of Death
- trauma
- treatments
- volunteer
- volunteers
- washing the body
- widow
- wife
- You Need Care Too
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...
Denial by the person with a life threatening illness, denial by the caregiver, and I’ll even add denial by some attending physicians. Denial is often the reaction to diseases that have...
I see Death Cafes as the start of a conversation; the start of opening ourselves up to exploring end of life issues; the start of breaking the belief that if I talk...
We used to have grandma’s body “laid out” in the parlor and family and friends came to our home with support and food. Grandma died in the home and we...
When the terminal illness, the disease progression, has been a pain filled experience and all comfort management options have been unsuccessful, then sleep is our friend...
My husband Jack has been dead eight months. In processing the five months from his diagnosis to his death, what stands out most for me is the tension that surrounded food....
Because of knowledge we’ve lost when people began dying in places other than home, we judge approaching death by the treatments and procedures used in getting people better...
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”.
Most people, if they had their choice, would want to be in their home with family and the dog or cat on the bed when they die. YET, most people...
We enter peoples’ lives as professionals. We are knowledgeable, supportive, caring, and personable. However, we are not best friends, we are not even friends, really.
Now I have to learn how to be a widow. How to create a new life, a new way of being. I am truly alone.
Death has touched us all, some more recently than others. Grief has no actual timeline, no end point where we are suddenly “fine”. Each of us responds to our loss...
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...
The heart is still beating even when our less sophisticated machines don’t register them. The breathing will get slower and slower and the time between breaths will get longer and...
In the days to weeks before gradual death occurs a person realizes, at last, that they are dying. They may not share that realization with anyone, but they know. If...
I know that dementia doesn’t play by the rules of approaching death. The guidelines relating to food, sleep and sociability don’t fit with dementia. I know that I am seeing...
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...
I think we healthcare workers rely on our words as our offering. Explanations, suggestions, instructions, even using words to offer condolences and trying to comfort. And yes, words are a...
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...
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...
In our medical society today, it seems to be very difficult for physicians to tell patients and/or families that death is approaching; That this special person will die, and probably...