Something to Think About

Filling out an Advance Directive when you are healthy is different than filling one out when you are elderly or living with a serious illness...

Our base nature comes out when we are in pain, other worldly, and on high doses of all kinds of medications.  We are unconsciously expressing the terrible situation we were...

Number one, we are all going to die at some point. Of course the operative words here are “at some point.” If we are told death will be the outcome...

If you have a good, amicable relationship then get them together and say, with caring in your heart, "I am going to tell you some things I have learned about...

She is gone, the house seems emptier. Baxter cat (who we let smell her before she left) seems at a bit of a loss, as he wanders the house. Is...

I want the medical profession, the medical model we find in doctors’ offices and hospitals, to do everything possible to help me not only regain my health, but to return...

Hospice is widely known for providing end of life care. It has grown in size and in its original scope of services. Even its definition of “end of life care”...

With old age and no active debilitating disease process, all the signs of approaching death (less eating, more sleeping and gradual decline in social interests) occur, BUT they occur over...

All the work we do leads up to the moment of death. Our goal is to guide and support those present through the moment the last breath occurs.

It is our job, our responsibility as end of life workers to be honest with our patients. In a “don’t tell mom” situation I first assess where everyone is, who...

Funerals are for the living. They are to bring comfort. Recognizing the life lived by the person that died is comfort to the living...

We in health care, enter a family's life at a challenging, sad and fearful time. It is our acts of thoughtfulness that will be remembered and provide comfort.

How tragic that none can come forward and say, "Your father is dying. Let's stop all these extras and keep him comfortable”. Family as well as many individual physicians do...

In our medical society today, it seems to be very difficult for physicians to tell patients and/or families that death is approaching; That this special person will die, and probably...

A hospice referral is a win-win. You win if they say it is too soon and youare not appropriate for hospice care, or you win by coming onto the hospiceprogram...

There is a huge void in our medical system that so many families living with dementia fall into. These families have a loved one too sick and require too much...

Part of normal grief is all the questions we will never have answers to, the whys and what if’s? With death by suicide those questions are ten fold. With a...

Medicine and medical technology can prolong our life but not indefinitely and it is generally at the expense of our quality of living. Or we can reframe how we think...

The elderly, after a fall or illness, often are not much interested in eating. If there are no other health issues, they gradually return to normal eating. In the meantime...

We tend to play the “elephant in the room” game at the mention of our missing loved one. “If we don’t talk about how sad we are feeling we won’t...

Dying isn't like it is in the movies. We don't know what it is like to die from disease or old age and while everyone is going to do it,...