Mar 142012
For the dying
Feb 292012
I believe in healing and I believe in healing at the end of life. I have personally experienced healing in relationships, in terms of my sense of myself. Emotional healing, relational healing, psychological healing: all these partake of the spiritual insofar as they relate to the meaning we make and the meaning we find in Read more . . .
Feb 102012
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 . . .
Feb 072012
Guest Contributor: Viki Kind CPR or cardiopulmonary resuscitation used to be very simple to understand. Cardio stands for heart, pulmonary stands for lungs and resuscitation means to revive from death. When a patient died, someone would push on the person’s chest to try to restart the heart while giving mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to help the person Read more . . .
Feb 032012
When I was diagnosed with cancer—years ago now, I am happy to report—I faced an inner crisis of meaning. Sitting on the front step alone at 2:00 am, I realized with a profound shock that the cancer didn’t MEAN anything. It didn’t mean I was good or that I was bad. It didn’t mean my Read more . . .
Jan 312012
She was a very savvy, determined woman who had been a medical professional and served on a variety of boards and committees. We’ll call her Joan. Yet, for all her intelligence and savvy, as Joan lay near death in a palliative care ward after battling cancer for 11 years, with a house in her name Read more . . .
Nov 082011
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 . . .
Oct 312011
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 . . .
Oct 182011
I recently came upon an essay by an author named Bronnie Ware entitled, “Regrets of the Dying.” Her story is that as someone who worked in palliative care for many years she had occasion to ask dying patients whether or not they had any regrets. She found five common themes in their responses.
Sep 172011
You’ve taken care of business, you’re doing your best to deal with the feelings—your own and those of others—so what remains for you when you see your own death looming on the horizon? If you are one who has the luxury of some time yet before the end,you can make some choices at least about Read more . . .