
Something to Think About
a blog on end of life
- 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
- Gone From My Sight
- graduating from hospice
- gratitude
- Grief
- Grief Counselor
- grief support
- Guilt
- holidays
- 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
- loss
- 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
All the hours of talking, drinking coffee, and eating homemade pies was time spent healing, building trust, and educating. It wasn’t about blood pressures. It was about people, feelings, and...
My hope in writing this blog is to draw our attention to the “unsung heroes” caring for their special person as end of life approaches, as well as to those caring...
I believe everyone has the right to be told once that they can’t be fixed. It is the physician’s job to compassionately and honestly give that information...
I had someone ask me "Why do all people with dementia feel someone is out to get them?" My answer—not all people with dementia feel or react like someone is...
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...
Taking care of someone who is at the end of life is different from taking care of someone who is going to get better, BUT most people don’t know this—-including...
I think a big part of grieving is loneliness. Loneliness for our person who has left us but also aloneness in our day to day activities...
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...
How do we get beyond the social conventions of strangers meeting and getting to know and trust each other in a very short time? From the time we ring the...
From the time we turn 18 until our last breath, we should have an advance directive in place. Once a person turns 18, parents have no legal standing. Most physicians...
...That caregivers put so much energy, time, love, and concern into taking care of their person that they can become blind to or just plain don’t want to see the...
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....
I am hearing stories about the lack of professional staff training for new hires, which led me to wonder about volunteer training...
When working with families who ask me not to tell mom, I say that I won’t bring the subject up, but if she asks, I will talk about it.
What do I, the sufferer, want from you then, if “how are you?” doesn’t work?
By not writing out our end of life wishes, organizing our material affairs, and talking to those involved, we are putting ourselves and those close to us in the hands, minds, and...
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...