Our Sacred Little World of Dying
Anna’s illustrations capture her mother’s final months. Read more on Medium.
‘Rapid Autopsy’ Programs Seek Clues To Cancer Within Hours Of Death
After Keith Beck died of bile duct cancer last year, family members said more than 900 people showed up to pay respects to the popular athletic director at the University of Findlay in northwestern Ohio. Many were former students who recalled acts of kindness during...
Take You Me For a Sponge?: How My Marriage Survived Illness and Caregiving
Indeed, the minor details of our domestic life sound petty even as I enumerate them. But what could be more important than the mundanities that make up lives together, a marriage? The texture of a shared life comes from our small priorities, our daily choices, and...
The High Cost of Cancer Treatment
Not only are cancer patients 2½ times as likely to declare bankruptcy as healthy people, but those patients who go bankrupt are 80 percent more likely to die from the disease than other cancer patients, according to studies from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in...
Rethinking My Broken Relationship with My Troubled Dad Now That He’s Dead
I knew my father abused drugs. I watched that man abuse drugs since I was five. I had memorized the shape and texture of the turquoise tiles of our old bathroom floor. I picked my unconscious father off of that tiled floor more than once. The weirdest part of his...
Karen
His wife has cancer. And is pregnant. The baby is born early. His wife starts treatment. They’re in different hospitals. And then his wife dies. A new father learns to keep going after losing the love of his life. Listen on Terrible, Thanks for...
The cancer stories no one wants to hear
During the 11 months when my husband, Ahmad, was dying of bladder cancer, few people wanted to hear how he was truly doing. They wanted to hear about hope, courage, and positivity, not about how Ahmad was unlikely to survive or his ruminations on how to live well... Stroke Toast
I’ve watched for 10 years as she lived with cancer. Watched as her mother, father, brother died while she went through chemotherapy. Watched the bone marrow extractions. Watched the drainage tube being installed in her abdomen to syphon off the fluid. Watched the... Down The Rabbit Hole Into Caregiverland
It’s a complete 180 learning curve going from journalist / author / daughter to caregiver / nurse / nursing aide / doctor / mother. And what a challenge it can be. Every morning, we have an aide who manages Mom’s hygiene, bathing her and washes her hair when she wants...
Cancer survivors are more likely to use opioids
A new study found that opioid prescription use is more common in cancer survivors than in individuals without a history of cancer. This was true even among survivors who were ten or more years past their cancer diagnosis. Published early online in CANCER, a... Design Your Business Around Your Life
When Cornelia Shipley got the call that her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer and then her father had a stroke within the same week, she was living in New Mexico where she had moved for her dream job. But the parents who needed her were living 1500 miles away,...
A community forged by loss and love – and photographs that found joy at the end of life
The emails poured in by the dozen, day after day after day. They came from parents and children, from violin makers and doctors, from sisters, husbands, colleagues, teachers. Some were spare, just a line or two. Others went on for pages, full of emotion. I read them... Four Months, One Yellow Form, and the Endless High Waves of Caregiving
Every time I am outwardly sarcastic, impatient, and/or frustrated with him, I think to myself “you are probably going to write a blog post after all of this is done reflecting on how you could have been less sarcastic, more patient, and less triggered by frustration...
It Was Like Nothing Else in My Life Up to Now
I was only three hours away, but I was absent for most of my mom’s sickness. I had class. I had work. I had excuses. I came home for deer hunting and holidays and spring break. Otherwise, I called. I emailed. I stayed away. When I did come home, my job was... How Caregiving Responsibilities are Impacting Generation Y
My college years weren’t characterized by wild sorority parties, study abroad opportunities, nor honor school retreats. Instead, they were spent caring for my two-time cancer survivor, five-time hip replacement recipient grandmother suffering from late stage...
How My Son’s Cancer Put Me on the Path of Helping Others Become Better Patients and Caregivers
June 29, 2005. A day I will never forget. Our 17 year old son Zachary was diagnosed with a DIPG, an inoperable, malignant brain tumor, carrying a survival rate of less than 2%. Our world crumbled before us as we were told Zach had 4-6 weeks to live. To say we were...
Life with Li–Fraumeni syndrome
Sue Armstrong meets Pan Pantziarka, whose son George had Li–Fraumeni syndrome and lived with cancer from early childhood. One of the bleakest moments in Pan Pantziarka’s long struggle with Li–Fraumeni syndrome was when doctors at Great Ormond Street Hospital in London...
Josh Mond and Christopher Abbott Write It Down
James White centers on the titular James, forced out of his partying habits and into the role of caregiver to his mother, Gail, who’s played with honesty and pathos by Cynthia Nixon. She’s been diagnosed with cancer; her condition is advanced. Paste: Had you been...
Where Grief Takes Us: A Caregiver’s Journey Living with Loss
Somehow I knew I had to walk through that grief. I couldn’t work it away, or ignore it, or pretend it wasn’t there.
Caregiver narcotic overload chaos “going with the flow”
As a caregiver for a terminally ill loved one, we have many distinctive roles to play in their well being. One role might be, “going with the flow.” Alzheimer’s and dementia are horrible, little understood diseases of the mind. But there are other...
I was my husband’s caregiver as he was dying of cancer. It was the best seven months of my life.
Ten years ago this month, my world as I knew it ended. My husband of 19 years, the father of my two sons, was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Over the course of seven months, Bill went from beating me silly on the tennis court to needing my help to go to the bathroom...
The metaphor: A portrait of a gatekeeper of love
Annie lived and died in laughter. She was such a bright light for others fighting cancer, and struggling just to get through another day. She brought to them an un-feathered love, full of joy and inspiration. She was the gatekeeper of love for many people she saw pass...
Hospital Discharge: It’s One Of The Most Dangerous Periods For Patients
Within two weeks of Joyce Oyler’s discharge from the hospital, sores developed in her mouth and throat, and blood began seeping from her nose and bowels. Her daughter traced the source to the medicine bottles in Oyler’s home in St. Joseph, Missouri. One drug that...
Why Chemo Sucks So Bad
“How is Trent doing with this round of chemo?” This is undoubtedly the question I answer most these days. I don’t have a problem with anyone asking me this question at all. It’s actually just the opposite. I really appreciate being asked and...
Grief: now I understand, Nostalgia
There’s not much worse in life, than losing someone we love, as we lose so much. That was my case when I lost Annie. However, sometimes it’s nice to sit back, go over a few of the memories you shared with your loved one in no particular order and just... On Vanishing
Janet Adkins, a fifty-four-year-old English teacher, decided to make herself gone before the disease got the chance. Diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s disease, she was Dr. Jack Kevorkian’s first client. A minister friend asked me recently about my grandfather. I...
Halloween night
The calm before the storm October 31, 2010: Annie woke up this morning not feeling very well. All the anxiety around getting blood and platelet products the past week was taking its toll on her. But, as always, she found a way to bring out her beautiful smile and made...
Caregiver: Life after death
It seems to me one of the more difficult subjects to talk about these days, is what happens after death. Is there such a thing as “Life After Death?” To many, the question posed is one of life’s greatest mysteries. To others, it’s all simply a...
After the death: Dealing with loved ones personal effects
When I was a youngster, I was walking by our local church one day and for whatever reason decided to have a rummage in the trash can. To my amazement I found an old Bible. I gathered it up, and ran to the pastors house. I knocked on the door and was greeted by the...Top Posts
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