We might improve our understanding about grief's supposedly destructive features. Guilt keeps memory alive. We sure as hell don't forget feeling personally responsible for someone's premature death, rather than having pulled them back from destruction. There are so many ways to die and so many times for dying, but once dead there's no more chances … Continue reading Guilt, Grief, and Honoring the Dead
Hospice Focus Group Q & A
I heard "Free breakfast" and agreed. Then drove 20 miles in morning rush hour to discuss something with unknown others at the branch office. Maybe ideas to jolly up the work environment, help us worker bees, or get our company's message better integrated into the healthcare market? Perhaps a mixed bag of motives. Something to … Continue reading Hospice Focus Group Q & A
Getting Too Much of Minimalism
We're here! We're poor! We're NOT GOING SHOPPING! Protest rally cry at OWS (Occupy Wall Street) and Other Capitalism Friction Spots Ads and Media say, "You're no good as you are now". Minimalism's retort: "There's NOTHING you lack". Then Madison Ave. sells us packaged Minimalism. When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world … Continue reading Getting Too Much of Minimalism
The Comedy of Medication Errors
I don't push medications but will support you if you're unsure, insecure, even frightened of them. I'll guide your giving it and strengthen confidence in its helping effect, but also support your reasons for not automatically reaching for pharmaceutical solutions. Should we take a medication, or not? Two reasons for giving medication are especially needed … Continue reading The Comedy of Medication Errors
Mother Gets the Dreadful Phlegms
I can't breathe Manuel Ellis, Edward Bronstein, Eric Gardner, George Floyd... Anything amiss with a human airway is potentially deadly, we seem born knowing. You'd think, unlike these dead men from policing tragedies who prove the contrary, that opening their closed airways was important enough that they would suddenly pay attention and instantly cooperate while … Continue reading Mother Gets the Dreadful Phlegms
Myth of the Peaceful Death
Did you hear the palliative medicine fable that every single symptom for every minute of the day can be "taken care of"/Managed? Oh, sure you have. We know the world does not work like that, not the imperfect world we know, but want to believe in the myth. Connotations of a quote Good Death = … Continue reading Myth of the Peaceful Death
Nurses Not Calling Doctors
In my time there went a woman begging about this Cittie, who had a Coffin carried with her, and oftentimes she fell into those Hystericall fits, and would lye so long in them, nothing differing from a dead carkasse, till the wonted time of her reviving. Hence it may * be came the Proverbe, Thou … Continue reading Nurses Not Calling Doctors
Learning to Die
All my life I have been surrounded by things I'd rather not know too much about, so I have come to feel that truth made naked without purpose is really a wanton. The Kraken Wakes, John Wyndham Since we're all going to die some day, we might consider imagining as sooner than too late imagine … Continue reading Learning to Die
Stealing Food To Feed the Worms
I don't need no food, no water, Lord, cuz I'm running out of time|Fighting, killing, wine and women going to put me to my grave Uriah Heep, Stealin' I'm happy when one of my hospice patients in impoverished nursing homes steals food. There's life in him yet! Double portions anyone? I doubt he'll eat twice … Continue reading Stealing Food To Feed the Worms
On Nurses Taking Fake Vacations
No hospice nurse on my team is visiting their patients this Monday, the busiest weekday. I see several want visits because I'm reading work emails. I read work emails when I'm not scheduled to work despite being reminded not to. Also, I read the text messages that come from my patient's families. One rigid guy … Continue reading On Nurses Taking Fake Vacations
Hospice Nursing 1 Day at a Time 