Guest Contributor: Viki Kind 4. Think about the kind of death you are choosing. With CPR, you might not have the opportunity for a peaceful and profound death experience. When you picture the last minutes of your loved one’s life, do you see strangers straddling the patient on a bed, pushing on the patient’s chest, Read more . . .
The use of narcotic drugs in end of life care continues to be debated. On the one side, opiates are seen as addictive substances with criminal usage associations that might wrongly alter a dying person’s experience of reality. On the other side, opiates are seen as the most effective pain controllers available to us, the Read more . . .
On October 16th, Steve Jobs’ sister Mona, with whom he was reunited as an adult, delivered a eulogy at his funeral. The whole text of the eulogy is available online in many places and was an articulate and moving tribute to a remarkable human being. My interest was snagged by the description in that eulogy Read more . . .
I just saw pictures of a little boy–looking perky and alert–a year after a double kidney and liver transplant saved his life. The gift of survival was given to him by a nineteen year old young man who died of meningitis. While he could still communicate, the nineteen year old told his parents that he Read more . . .
If you are anticipating your own death, or that of a loved one, you may be wondering what to expect when the dying process really begins. The following is a brief introduction to the stages of dying, although there are of course some variations in the sequence or timing. Before describing the process, I want Read more . . .