You matter because of who you are. You matter to the last moment of your life, and we will do all we can not only to die peacefully, but also to live until you die. Dame Cicely Saunders, founder of the modern hospice movement Don't count on treating your chronic disease indefinitely, or that it … Continue reading Choosing a Quality Hospice
Tag: death and dying
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
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
An Idea Is Not A Practice
Ideas get us into trouble. Even good ones. From this blog's subject file, I find several ideas that have caused and continue to cause me trouble once I reach out to realize them. Consider ideas about love, marriage, physical fitness, or weight reduction. What about meditation, representative democracy, hydrocarbon, or tech dependency? Or consider economic … Continue reading An Idea Is Not A Practice
Death Prophets and Prognostics
In these greedy and distracted times, doesn't chasing after our personal profits and fun run us further along the way of high-risk gambling on weather-caused collapse? We know where we're headed, know what's coming. Like putting off dieting, our final acts of reconciliation defer to another round of golf, or chemotherapy, or perhaps we'd rather … Continue reading Death Prophets and Prognostics
Hospice Grows as Family Shrinks
Sometimes hospice workers are called honorary family. That sounds good to say after times of great intimacy during our demonstrations of what seem extraordinary efforts to bring needed care. These efforts illustrate what the family considers real evidence of fidelity, and even love. But hospice is a business. And its workers are not family, even … Continue reading Hospice Grows as Family Shrinks
On Grief Spectatoring
O, here they come. Hamlet, Act 4, scene 2 Described on a spoken word CD read by its author in the book Not That Bad: Dispatches from Rape Culture (Roxane Gay, ed.), Brandon Taylor's 'friends' on Facebook sent him wishes of "love and light" on the death of his abusive mother; then they follow all … Continue reading On Grief Spectatoring
Dying Is Irritating
Why are the dying in such foul moods sometimes? Why the moodiness when you say you're not in pain, Mr. Hospice? Is it a pain you don't know how to talk about? Well, I can say this: For those not fully invested in their consciousness being transferred to some sweet hereafter, it's irritating when we're … Continue reading Dying Is Irritating
Doing No (More) Harm: Clinicians As Family Members
The physician daughter wants to be kept in the loop but hasn't yet return my calls. Then I realize she's his PCP after he gets delirious and she orders, through me, a urinalysis and then a culture in case the piss is dirty (UA/reflux C&S). What happened to giving him some low dose cipro or … Continue reading Doing No (More) Harm: Clinicians As Family Members
Terminal Agitation: It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Dying)
It's typically called a Change of Condition in the medical world, a coded phrase said up front during the *SBAR call to the doctor, meaning "Situation here is...well, changed". Residential care custodians use the term, vague as it is, despite having nothing much more accurate to describe than that the patient looks "not right". Sometimes … Continue reading Terminal Agitation: It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Dying)
Hospice Nursing 1 Day at a Time 