Something to Think About

I received a letter from a person whose chronic illness has put her at “death's door” many times over the years. She requested my thoughts on her ongoing illness and...

Question: How do we communicate with a person who is deaf, who has a brain tumor, who is trapped inside a body from a stroke, has dementia, or is in...

 Question: Your books, articles and blogs have helped our family through several deaths and dying situations. I just read your blog about animals. It was very close to my...

QUESTION: Please write about when a person is approaching death and they see or ask about people who have already died. In the weeks before death from disease a person...

Question: How do you handle your personal struggles when you have a family member or friend placed under hospice care and you are a hospice professional? How do you deal...

QUESTION: As toxins build in the body because your body isn’t working right anymore, what signs are there that you are shutting down? Stage 4 liver disease, hepatitis C. I...

REQUEST: Write about the role of a hospice nurse in working within a dysfunctional familial environment that involves the patient. What is the definition of “dysfunction,” really? The dictionary defines...

QUESTION: Would you write about guilt? My husband died two weeks ago and I wish I had been more aware of what he was going through but I wasn’t. So...

How can Hospice and Nursing Facilities work well together?I think there are as many ways for a hospice to work with a nursing facility as there are hospices and facilities...

Question: I am caregiving for my 84 year old stroke victim Dad. Just recently he has been pawing at the air with his hands in his sleep. He only took...

QUESTION: Should children be told of their impending death or do they somehow know it? It is interesting to me that we can talk about adults approaching death and all...

At this point in her disease process really the only medications your Mom needs to be taking are for pain. You could crush up the pills (make sure they are...

Question: My beloved cat is dying. My heart is broken. What do you think happens when animals die? Talk about dealing with grief from the loss of a pet. (The...

QUESTION: Would you write about dying from Alzheimer's? There is a reason Alzheimer's is referred to as “the long goodbye.” From diagnosis until death it is generally a very long...

At first the pain and emptiness of loss is with us every waking and even sleeping moment. Over a period of months we gradually begin to see life moving around...

After food and sleep, the third area to look at to see if a person with a life threatening illness has entered the dying process is their social interactions with...

Another part of the natural dying process is a person begins sleeping more. Starting 2 to 4 months before death occurs from disease a person begins taking an afternoon nap...

Some people have talked to me about “bad” hospice experiences so I want to address the subject. Unfortunately, there are agencies calling themselves hospice that really don’t practice the philosophy....

Dear Barbara, Will you talk about the use of morphine to ease the dying on their way? I am going to take that statement to mean “to ease the pain...

On the journey toward physical death, as the body stops eating food, it also stops drinking water. We all recognize the body’s need for hydration, for water, to live and...

There will come a time when a person just can’t and won’t eat but in the months before death a bit of time and energy can sometimes be bought by...