Something to Think About

If you teach your families well about the approaching end of life there will be no problems with them understanding the labor of dying. Having someone you care about dying is...

QUESTION: Could you write about why it's so difficult for people to start end-of-life care conversations? I was just on the phone with a woman who told me the doctor...

QUESTION: I would like to know if my mother died at home, could we wash and care for her, and dress her for bed? Can a person have family come...

Timing of the “hospice” talk is important as well as having an end of life talk before having the hospice talk. 

Is life worth living with all this assistance? For some it will be, for others is won’t...

I received the following comment on my Blog. "They are overmedicating Mom” (The family said of hospice professionals). “Following a brief rally, she slept most of the time and died...

QUESTION: Can you write about the beauty, the strength, the gifts that death can sometimes bring? I have had the honor of being near a handful of loved ones in...

QUESTION: I have a few important matters to discuss and explain. How can I communicate with a dead loved one? I know Houdini tried to reach his mother and felt...

QUESTION: What happens when we stop treatment and Mom doesn’t die? This is such a general question that it is hard to answer specifically but here are some ideas to...

Food is the body’s anchor to this planet. It is what keeps us going, gives us energy, grounds us. As death from disease approaches the body doesn’t want the grounding,...

QUESTION: Why do so many health workers working in palliative care carry on smoking /drinking even though many of their patients are dying due to smoking/alcohol related cancers? This has...

QUESTION: We are having a terrible time with hospice nurses and compassion here where we live. My daughter is suffering and taking care of her dad (who is dying). There...

Question: My father died just three days ago. Immediately following his death, my brother (my only sibling) immediately became controlling and started excluding me from all decisions, to the level...

QUESTION: My father and I have always had a difficult relationship. He is now approaching death. What do I do? There is no perfect relationship. Life is a series of...

Treating people with a cold professionalism vs. treating them as children is either end of a spectrum of respect for a patient’s personhood. Cold professionalism can be as dehumanizing as...

QUESTION: Please talk about end of life pain management. There is so much confusion around end of life pain management. Confusion regarding use of narcotics, fear of overdosing and addiction....

QUESTION: Talk about self care for professionals who work in end of life. No matter our chosen career taking care of ourselves is important but working with end of life...

QUESTION: My father-in-law died a few months ago. I’m not thinking about him as much as I am thinking about my mother and brother who died years before. When we...

We spend so much of our life being afraid of death. We pretend we will live forever so we don’t make Advance Directives or Living Wills. We take all treatment...

GRIEF AND THE HOLIDAYS I posted this blog article last year about this time and am reposting it for this year’s holidays. In our grief any holiday celebration tends to...

The phenomenon generally occurs in the weeks before death and can be accompanied with restlessness and agitation. Generally, medication is not required unless the confusion and restlessness puts the person...