Maggie’s sister called me around 6:30 am to tell me that she and Maggie’s brother had been called and told that Maggie does not have much longer to live. They had gone to their respective homes for the weekend on Friday afternoon to get chores done, based on assurances from the doctors that Maggie seemed …
Category Archives: End-of-life care choices
Waking up is hard to do
Yes, you DO swing from tears to laughter unpredictably when a loved one is dying. Why do you ask?
‘Love is watching someone die’
Click for a profound and touching video correlating the lyrics of “What Sarah Said” by the indie rock group, Death Cab for Cutie, with the experience of a person at the very end of life made by a palliative care doctor. It will make you a better, stronger and more courageous person. Love is the …
A surgeon learns what hospice care can do to improve the end-of-life experience and reduce medical costs
I’ve been providing end-of-life care for my loved ones for most of the last 10 years. Hospice care did so much to improve the end-of-life experience for my late life partner and my mother that my father had me make arrangements so that he can have it, too, when his time comes. (New gentle readers: …
The right to turn off a pacemaker
I was browsing Twitter this morning and spotted a tweet by Jimmy Bise linking a post by Stacy McCain, who was connecting a New York Times piece about anosognosia to choice of political parties. “Anosognosia” describes the dilemma where you don’t know what you don’t know, which is why stupid people are not smart enough …