I was thinking about life and living the other day——- what? doesn’t everybody? Anyway, I envisioned life as a line. Birth, living, dying, death is how life unfolds. We are born with labor to get into this world. We learn how to eat, to sleep, and to socialize as part of being alive. Then we […]
Dear Barbara, How important is spirituality and how do you reach out to a non-religious person who believes the end is the end? One of the “End of Life Rules” in supporting someone is to accept them with their belief system. It is not our place to try to share our beliefs, only to support theirs. […]
Dear Barbara, I’m a caregiver and I’m so beat up. When do I just say I’ve done all I can? Now! Sounds like you’ve reached your limit. It’s time to put your “oxygen mask on.” You can’t provide good care when you are “so beat up.” That isn’t good for you. And it isn’t good for […]
Someone asked me what role I see chaplains fulfilling in end of life care. In reflecting on that question it occurred to me that chaplains tends to get lost in the shuffle of patient care. It is the least understood and often the least accessed of the hospice services provided. Sadly, to everyone’s loss. Hospice […]
Dear Barbara, Can you recommend a book guiding a new hospice volunteer (me) with spiritual support to a dying person whose views are very different from my own? I do not have a book to recommend that tells you how to support a patient with spiritual views other than your own. BUT I can tell […]
In the early 1980s I was in an antique/junk kind of shop and saw an old beat up picture frame with a faded poem written in it. Gone From My Sight was the poem’s name. I smiled when I read the poem, thought “how beautiful,” and bought the framed poem. Fast forward to 1985. As a hospice […]
I did a podcast with Mary Anne Oglesby-Sutherly called Aging, Angst & Alleluia’s. Among other things, she is a Dementia Doula. I had not heard of that term before and now that I have, I’m hooked. Doula is an ancient Greek word meaning a woman who serves. That word has evolved into today’s world slightly […]
“Dear Barbara, My mother passed two hours after being given a second shot of morphine and sedative. It was my fault. I panicked thirty minutes after the first dose. I thought my mom’s breathing should have been slowing down after the first shot so I called the nurse and asked if Mom could have a little more. […]
“Dying is not a medical event” and “The medical model views death as a failure, something to be fixed, to address” are two quotes you will hear from me repeatedly. The second quote is actually part of the foundation of healthcare so when working with end of life caretakers (nurses, social workers, home health aides, […]
Dear Barbara, I am 90 years old and have been healthy for most of those years. I take a thyroid pill and have a bit of arthritis. I am active, do yoga, and lead an independent life. Being old and healthy, my question is how am I going to die? Do you think I’ll just […]
