Grief is a lot of emotions rolled into one package. Some days feel manageable. Other days, everything falls apart. If you have ever wondered why grief feels so overwhelming, this is why. Visualize a table in front of an open window. There are stacks of paper on the table. Tidy, organized stacks. A slight breeze […]

I think a great disservice is done when physicians put an actual number on how long a person has to live. We cannot be that specific. We cannot know six months, one year, or any exact number. The closest we can come is to generally advise whether someone is in the ballpark of years, months, […]

What do hospice volunteers do, and why are they such an important part of end-of-life care?  I’ve worked in hospice for quite a long time. I started out as a hospice volunteer in 1982. It was the very beginning of hospice care in the US. In those days, I volunteered much of my time — I […]

Why You Need an Advance Directive (Before You Think You Do) National Healthcare Decisions Day – April 16 Healthcare decisions are certainly important enough to have their own special day.The sad and unfortunate thing is that most of us don’t even think about them—or realize there are decisions to be made. Generally, we don’t make […]

Some of you may see this differently—and that’s okay. I’m simply offering another way to think about this subject. I don’t believe that choosing to remain “full code” aligns with the purpose of hospice care. When that is the goal, palliative care may be the more appropriate path. Having hospice teams perform CPR goes against what hospice is […]

I’m going to give you something to think about. Some of you will disagree with me—and that’s okay. I am simply offering another perspective on living as death approaches. My husband was 89 years old when, during a routine chest exam, two lesions were found in his lung, very close to a lymph node. It […]

Is it normal to feel angry at someone who died? Yes. And for many people, that anger is one of the most confusing parts of grief. Elizabeth Kübler-Ross wrote about the stages of grief—denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance—but these emotions don’t happen in order, and they don’t come one at a time. It isn’t […]

Those of us working in the end of life profession are not only working in an area generally not talked about, let alone understood, but we are in a field that goes against much of what healthcare professionals are taught.  Healthcare professionals are trained to fix, to do everything possible to keep a person breathing. […]

From the emails I receive, it seems that the three most concerning, upsetting aspects of dying for the watchers are agitation, hallucinations, and the gurgling from excess moisture in the throat and/or back of the mouth. These three areas are very much a part of the dying process. Many dying people have them, it’s just […]

Dear Barbara,Is the death process different when a person is killed by violence—such as a gunshot, stabbing, or physical beating—than when death comes suddenly through an accident? In both situations, death is immediate, and the person doesn’t have time to sort through thoughts or see landscapes. Those killed by violence or any other way that […]