If I stop treatment does it mean I stop trying? If I stop trying does it mean I’ll start dying? I don’t want to die. When faced with the above considerations, what decision do we make? How do we face the realization “I am going to die”? Most of us go through life with the notion […]
Dear Barbara, can you recommend a resource to educate me on how to become a private EOL practitioner? About EOL training? I’m taking that to mean end of life doula training. There are many groups offering training. I would suggest doing a Google search and start contacting different programs to find the “fit” for you. […]
I’m excited to announce my newest resource, By Your Side, A Guide for Caring for the Dying at Home. It is written for the family caregiver, who is caring for their loved one approaching end of life from old age or disease. The person who may be caring for their mother or father who is […]
On an Instagram Live I recently did there was talk of a ten minute death call. Go to the home, pronounce the person dead, and leave to make the rest of your daily visits. Here is my idea of a death call. I have to warn you, it may take more than 10 minutes. You […]
Dear Barbara, My mother is 84 with multiple medical issues and increasing cognitive impairment. She has in the past and even now expresses that she no longer wants to keep “exiting” and doesn’t know why she is still alive. I don’t know how to help her. I hear this frequently from families as their person […]
Dear Barbara, my friends are getting terrible diagnoses. The women I am seeing are way too young to die. How do they make the decision to throw everything at their disease in the form of treatments that offer the low odds they will survive and poor quality of living during the treatment time or to […]
Dear Barbara, I live with a friend who has non curative cancer. I want to learn how to embrace this as something beautiful. We are such a death denying society your question startled me. We tend to only see the ugly through our fear filled eyes so I had to really think about my response. […]
Dear Barbara, I was just diagnosed with cancer. I am a hospice nurse and I know too much about severe illness. I am terrified. How do I prepare myself and family for the fact that I could be dying? I’m sorry you are facing life threatening challenges. It is even more challenging for you being […]
Dear Barbara, My husband just passed away. He suffered for several years after his diagnosis. He was in and out of the hospital most of this year. He had been on hospice 6 days. This is a version of letters I receive frequently. A person has been diagnosed with a life threatening illness, received various […]
Dying isn’t about the disease a person has. It is about the emotional, communal response to the person dying from the disease. It doesn’t require medical intervention. It requires comfort care and communal guidance. Comfort care is meeting the physical needs—nutrition and knowing when it is okay to stop concentrating on food. Comfort care is […]
