As a hospice and palliative care physician, grief is a familiar concept to me. It is most often discussed in the context of loss of life. However, grief at the root is simply profound and agonizing distress caused by loss — any loss. In hospice a…
Category: Palliative care
How do we explain the end-of-life rally?
Granny Rachel, my husband’s mother, was an old country soul. She was a simple lady who loved the Lord. She accepted me with open arms when my own parents turned their backs on me. Granny Rachel made the best sweet tea and the best homemade vegeta…
A crushing blow in a workplace I loved
My gut churned, a burning rose into my chest as I read the email. It’s happening again repeated on a reel in my mind, followed by I need to leave this job. But I wasn’t quitting. I was triggered. It was years after I’d had the rug pu…
What shared journeys to the afterlife teach about dying well and living better [PODCAST]
“The more I spoke with individuals who had experienced a shared crossing event, the more I also noticed repeating patterns. A woman in West Virginia and a woman in Australia with deeply similar experiences around the loss of a baby. A grown daugh…
What shared journeys to the afterlife teach about dying well and living better
An excerpt from At Heaven’s Door: What Shared Journeys to the Afterlife Teach About Dying Well and Living Better. What brings you here? I ask this question of every person who steps through the door because they have come to talk about death—the …
When you die: a poem
I will tell you exactly And only the facts. You are trapped a little for a time And unhappy Then your face hollows and it has a death mask As the soul withdraws from the body And you look at me and tell me who you see It is always someone, Sitting ther…
It’s not an easy thing to unlearn how to save a life
For the last couple of decades, I was trained to save lives. I sat shoulder to shoulder with others who drilled this in me when I was green, sometimes even through humiliation. I learned to perceptively read patient cues, develop quick reflexes, and th…
You can’t fix what is already broken
It’s one of the last weeks in December. If it was any other year, I would have realized that Christmas is around the corner, the air would be filled with a different, radiant, joyful kind of energy, and most of us would be focused on all the less…
You deserve a doctor who’s a good fit for you [PODCAST]
“I implore you — even if it’s difficult — if you don’t like your doctor, take the time and find a new one! How do you do that? Check your insurance for who they cover, and then ask your friends who they see and like. Google the physician. Google …
‘My Time to Live’: Through Novel Program, Kidney Patients Get Palliative Care, Dialysis ’Til the End
Seattle’s Northwest Kidney Centers, which pioneered kidney failure treatment 50 years ago, now pairs dying patients with hospice services, without forcing them to forgo the comfort dialysis can provide.
