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Great! Best Wishes. Michael

Hi Judy, My curiosity was piqued by your statement…”I provide "Continuous Care" through an agency…” The implication being that your agency anticipates pt/fam need or desire for Continuous, In-Home care. And, having set up a mechanism, or “team” if ...

Hi Leslie… Referring back to page 36, Post # 353 of this thread… I’ve been thinking about this, for a year and a half or so (referring to your comment, “it's all good. it's really, all good.”) It’s making more sense to me now, I think, but has left m...

Well, I’m coming down with a x-mas URI so will probably be in for it for a few days. Still, I thought it might be useful to illustrate how a so-called magical moment might be shrouded in doubt and thus, dismissed. About 3 years ago a friend and I hi...

Leslie… Thank you for clarifying. I’ll admit that some of your statements along those lines have left me scratching my head… wondering. But even when perplexed I’ve learned that your thoughts & opinions bear weight and merit reflection. I may ...

Leslie… Polar opposites? I’m not so sure. We do view language differently, and use it differently. But maybe not quite so differently as it may sometimes seem. I said here once that all language is metaphor. One can eat an apple, but not the lett...

Leslie, as always, is much nicer than I. Like her however, I did read your (zenman) links and found them to be very interesting. Mishlove is a very good interviewer and his work is nearly always enlightening. As I have mentioned before, my brothe...

zenman, The reason I raised the question about whether dying people may or may not be “working” or “processing” while “unconscious” is because that is a question which arises often for hospice nurses. It is quite common for hospice nurses to be appr...

zenman… Interesting. So what do you think? When dying people are “unconscious,” are they working? Are they processing? Is it situational? Michael

Jodi, Very well thought out and written post I must say. I believe it reflects a fundamental difference in our current views; i.e. you are currently working in hospice and I am not. While I think and write about dying you deal with it, hands on, ev...

Natalie, Pardon the sluggish response. No, I have not read it… I cannot read. I am probably one of the few illiterate writers you will ever know. Actually I can read, but only with special equipment, so it’s always a hassle. I get books from the l...

It is said that all things are relative. Studying dying process does not make one’s dying easy, just relatively easier. However, it seems that humans have a talent for making things harder. Having a baby, for example, is difficult enough, but if o...

Here is an aspect of caring for the dying that hospice nurses must wonder about from time to time, and certainly it is relevant to achieving good death… because the fear of death obviously impacts the way we dies. We often hear it said that no one re...

Allow Mystery… I assumed you’d had a tough day, but got a good chuckle out of your remarks just the same… I’ve been there myself! I have been contemplating the cutting horse analogy and concluded I like the dance analogy better. When interacting with...

finn… Yes indeed, you are quite right… as you define letting the pt/fam take the lead. I would refine it a little further… Have you ever seen a cutting horse work? You know… when a horse & rider (could be a cowboy or a cowgirl, it doesn’t matte...

finn… I apologize for being such a hard____, but I believe the point I am rather infamous for hammering on here is an important one. What we think really does matter… it has very real consequences… sometimes irreparable consequences. It is generall...

There are things which, if we think about them directly, seem overwhelming and perplexing… so we avoid thinking about them as much as possible… because feeling overwhelmed and perplexed is not so very fun. Yet at the same time, on a lower level of c...

finn… I share your hope of hearing from others. With the economy the way it is, expecting hospice organizations and agencies to voluntarily take on the burden of conducting studies into the nature of life, death and consciousness is, no doubt, wishf...

I am quite aware that many readers of this thread doubt whether pondering the nature of self-awareness, consciousness etc, has any practical value. But consider, when Ben Franklin flew his kite and captured some electricity, most people had similar ...

Allow Mystery… Stop beating around the bush and sugar coating everything… how do you REALLY feel about SW’s & Chaplains? When the original designers of the hospice benefit were trying to figure out how to effect “good death” it must have been a d...

finn… If I were in your shoes (and thankfully I am not) I would focus more on the pt and less on the husband & daughter. “Life” will undoubtedly provide them with what they need… whether they like it or not… but the hospice nurse’s ally (death) ...

finn… Intriguing case… yours. And a good one for illustrating the breadth and depth of factors that play into how a person dies… and whether we might consider that death to be a “good death”… or not so “good.” It even illustrates that when we consi...

finn… Hm-m-m… very interesting dynamic. Here’s my best guess… We get into ruts… paths that are not so very divergent… at first anyway… but over time the distance between the two paths keeps getting farther apart. Take a pair of scissors for exampl...

PS… finn… I forgot to address one of your questions; i.e. what should you say if your pt breaks and presents an opening… drops his mask? Answer: I don’t know… but you will. It’s situational. You will be there, I won’t. You’ll know. Michael

finn… I’m having to make some guesses as to the particulars of your pt/fam’s situation… it sounds like the one dying is the one who has been in control? Relationships between couples are, very often, not “adult-to-adult”… not as equals… not horizonta...