My grandmother died at home recently, surrounded by her family and loving caregivers with the support of a hospice team. It was exactly how she pictured the end of her life, and it cost our family $145,613.79. Many people envision their final days like my grandmother...
Many of us think we want to die at home, surrounded by friends and family. Unfortunately, a profit-driven healthcare and insurance system have turned this into a nightmare. Family members are so busy providing medical and nursing care that they are unable to spend...
My 92-year-old father fell one Saturday night a few months ago. My mother could not pick him up. Her brother was not answering his cellphone, so she called 911. An ambulance crew brought him to the hospital. I took the first flight from Washington, D.C., and arrived...
As a palliative care physician, I regularly ask my patients, or their family members, where they want to die. The specific language I use depends on what they know, what they want to know and how they process information, but the basic premise is the same. Having...
The kidney doctor sat next to Judy Garrett’s father, looking into his face, her hand on his arm. There are things I can do for you, she told the 87-year-old man, but if I do them I’m not sure you will like me very much. The word “death” wasn’t mentioned, but the...
When my mother grew quite ill and it became clear she would soon die, we brought her from the hospital to my parents’ house where they’d lived for nearly 50 years. It’s easy to imagine death happening in some faraway time in a faraway place with faraway objects that...
HASKELL COUNTY, Texas – To get to the house where Shawn Jordan wants to die, you drive a hypnotic road along miles of furrowed cotton fields, gnarly mesquite trees, low-to-the-ground cactus, and cattle perpetually in search of food. This iconic land of open...
Alia Indrawan is an integrative healing practitioner and intuitive guide based in Bali, Indonesia. She has previously worked as a Hospice Nurse, helping people with terminal illness to die gracefully and in peace. She has taken the lessons she’s learned from...
Those who work with the dying are familiar with patients seeing long deceased loved ones, angelic beings, even hearing music and comforting voices as the patient nears death. Deathbed phenomena have been documented in the days, weeks, and months before death since the...
When Annie looked up at me from her hospital bed and said, “Please take me home–I don’t want to die in the hospital.” With those words, Annie reserved, and deserved the right to die at home. Annie had five core wishes when diagnosed with...
Joy’s piece on her experience caring for her mother as she died at home got a huge reaction. Our community members have had dramatically different experiences taking care of someone in their final hours. Here are some of the things they shared: Get help My...
At one point during my mother’s last month on this planet, she was offered an extra pillow to make her more comfortable. She half-joked that the pillow belonged over her face. If I had known what her final days would be like, I may have obliged. Dying at home...
The loss: Going home, part 1 To this point I’ve written a series of blogs on a caregivers journey through cancer with his loving wife, Annie. I’ve barely skimmed the surface, but I’m seeing a void out there that needs to be filled now. It’s...
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