Something to Think About

What I have discovered is that a family member dying can bring a family together. It can be their finest moment of closeness and comfort. But for other families it...

We cannot put a number on how long our last experience will be. No one, doctors included, can be so specific as to say 6 months, 3 weeks or 24...

We can be as much at a loss when our pet is dying as we are when a person is dying but there doesn’t seem to be the support and...

Hospice can not take the experience and sadness of a loved one dying away. Our goal is to help the family create a sacred experience, to help their loved one...

The hours before actual death is very scary, a "I don't know what to do" time, for anyone present. Someone who knows the normal natural way a person dies can...

Be the best hospice you can possibly be, provide the highest quality of care with the most compassionate, caring staff your area has to offer. Build a reputation within the...

When living with a life threatening illness we are eating for two---our physical body and our disease. In most cases the disease eats before we do. If we don’t eat,...

For healthcare professionals it is often a balancing act to care for patients and then deal with the sense of futility that is triggered when they are doing their job...

There are other signs of approaching death that indicate a person with a disease (at any age) has weeks to live...

My message throughout all this time has been to educate, educate, educate. Educate anyone who will listen about how people die. To help people understand how death comes, what it...

...Fortunately, I suppose, my mother is now bed-bound and we were able toget Hospice to help out, so she now fits the bill for a 'model patient'... but itstill seems...

As we get older, life presents us with different challenges. We adapt to them in the same way we have lived our life and dealt with all the challenges in...

From the moment of a diagnosis of a life threatening illness we begin grieving. We grieve not just the eventual losses that come with serious illness but the approaching death...

There have been many changes in hospice care since it began. Some for the better, some not so much. What I am suggesting as representing a “good” hospice is becoming...

When we die we work to leave our body. That work begins months before death from disease actually occurs but we only really see the work happening when death is...

...not telling a person they can’t be fixed is taking away their opportunity to do and say that which is important to them. It is taking away their ability to...

It is because end of life care is different than caring for someone who is going to get better that we think the care being provided is causing harm. It...

We need to look at the promises made, evaluate them as to: can it be done, should it be done, and am I willing to do it? 

I believe that everyone has the right to decide how they will live and how they will die. There are people that no matter the disease will want to have...

Many years ago I attended a workshop at The Menninger Clinic in Topeka, Kansas. The topic was about when a clinician enters the administration work field. I don’t remember much...

We must talk about end of life issues NOW while we are healthy, and our thoughts are not clouded with fear. Right now when emotions don’t affect our thinking. When we can...