Something to Think About

a blog on end of life

We love sharing helpful info on our blog.

About the BK Team
Hoping For A Miracle

What many, maybe even most, people do is trade that moment for a gamble on the future. We do this gambling with a lot of life occurrences. But we place...

Caregiver Fear and Frustration When  Food Is Rejected

As caregivers, we want so much to do the “right thing” for our special person. We know death is coming but still try to do all we can to stop...

"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...

A Hospice Nurse Diagnosed With Cancer

What to do? First, look at the wording you wrote to me "could be dying." Actually, everyone is dying. Everyday we are one step closer to the end of our life. You're...

DYING SCARED article by End of Life Expert, Barbara Karnes, RN

I get a lot of letters like the one I’ve edited below. We, as a culture, are so unprepared for witnessing a death. We have no accurate role models. We...

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...

NHPCO Hospice Innovator, Barbara Karnes, RN writes about caring for a patient with ALS as they approach end of life

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...

NHPCO Hospice Innovator, Barbara Karnes, RN speaks to those who have had a loved one die in a violent way in her new blog, How To Grieve a Violent Death. www.bkbooks.com

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...

During this pandemic, Award Winning Hospice Pioneer, Barbara Karnes, RN speaks to her gratitude for the front line workers keeping our country from falling apart in her article, Can We Ever Thank You Enough, Front Line Workers?

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,...

In This Time of Fear, Dying 101 by Barbara Karnes, RN

People don’t die like they do in the movies—alive one minute, saying something profound and dead the next. There is a way that the body dies. A way it is...

Did the AIDS Epidemic Set Us Up To Handle COVID-19? by Barbara Karnes, RN

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...

We've Just Begun Social Distancing~ Here Are My Thoughts by Barbara Karnes, RN

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?...

HOSPICE DEATH CALL~ How To Comfort A Family You've Never Met by Barbara Karnes RN

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...

American Hospice Pioneer, Barbara Karnes, RN answers the question: Can you look back after a death and see that yes, they were dying and no one knew it?

In our personal situations we may never have an answer to the question did he know or had the process started months earlier. What I suspect is that at some...

WORKING TOGETHER, Hospice & Nursing Facilities by Barbara Karnes, RN

Hospice has worked with nursing facilities for many years now. Our relationship  and interactions with patients and their families is now better understood and better defined. That said, some nursing facilities...

I Hear You, But I Don't Understand

...I remember being with my mother in my hospice Medical Director’s office. He was explaining to my mother his medical findings as they related to her illness. I, being a...

GRIEF- Struggling After Mom's Death by Barbara Karnes, RN

Often after a person dies we forget that there is no perfect relationship, that there are easy times and difficult times. Somehow once a person dies we elevate them to...

A PLACE IN MY HEART, When A Pet Dies by Barbara Karnes, RN

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...

Where Is The Hospice I Know And Love? by Barbara Karnes, RN www.bkbooks.com

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...

3 Things You Can Do As Someone Is Dying by Barbara Karnes, RN

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...

A Hospice With Integrity by Barbara Karnes, RN

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...

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