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, or weeks. When they are nearer to death, we may be able to say they have days or hours.

Here is an example of the harm done by giving specific numbers. This is just one example — I could tell you many. A woman was told by her oncologist that if she did not have radiation for her lung Cancer, she would be dead in six months. She chose not to have the radiation. When the sixth month arrived, she expected to die. During that entire month, she worried and thought she would die at any moment. It was not until the beginning of the seventh month that she began to relax and stop expecting death at any moment. She lived eighteen months.

I could tell you all kinds of stories, but you get the point I am making.

Not knowing the signs of approaching death, we believe what we see on television or in the movies. We accept that we will be alert, then be in bed, and die. We believe every word our physician tells us — they are the Experts. With our physical challenges and our bodies not behaving normally, we are vulnerable and scared. Our physician becomes our savior. We believe them.

If we had knowledge of the end of life, which most of us don’t, we would be better prepared to face and cope with this final life experience.

What I want people to know is that Dying a gradual death from illness is not like the movies. Dying a gradual, disease-related death has a process to it. There are signs that death is coming — signs that can alert us to a time frame of months, weeks, days, or hours. But that is the closest the medical community can come.s

Something more…

In my End of Life Guideline Series, I explain the natural stages of dying and the signs that tell us whether death may be months, weeks, days, or hours away. These small booklets help families and caregivers understand what is happening and how to respond with confidence from diagnosis to the grieving process.

Originally Published on https://bkbooks.com/blogs/something-to-think-about

Barbara Karnes Registered Nurse

Barbara Karnes, RN Award Winning End of Life Educator, Award Winning Nurse, NHPCO Hospice Innovator Award Winner 2018 & 2015 International Humanitarian Woman of the Year

While at the bedside of hundreds of people during the dying process, Hospice Pioneer Barbara Karnes noticed that each death was following a near identical script. Each person was going through the stages of death in almost the same manner and most families came to her with similar questions. These realizations led Barbara to sit down and write Gone From My Sight, "The Little Blue Book" that changed the hospice industry.