What matters most when someone close to you has been diagnosed as terminal? Time and quality of life for both of you. Coping with both the practical and emotional questions of this challenging passage. Every death is individual — as is the walk toward that death both for the one leaving and the ones they leave behind. What truly matters between human beings while taking care of the business of living at the end of life is what this book is about.It offers: •Practical tips for coping with the physical changes that will impact both the person and the caregiver emotionally, physically, financially and spiritually. •Advice on paperwork to make things a little easier for the caregiver and for those they leave behind. •The stories of others; we are not alone •Tips for friends, neighbors, colleagues or any other part of the relationships we all share in life. There is no perfect way to walk through this time in life. But there are good ways to do it. Focusing on what matters while taking care of the practical business of living and dying can make this walk slightly less scary and more rewarding for everyone. How to use this book: Browse the chapter headings; skip around in the TIPS for ways to approach or solve specific problems. Search the Sources at the end of the chapters for additional information. Read the stories of others’ experiences. For the co-worker, the friend and the neighbor, this book offers advice and helpful hints on what to say or do as well as what not to say or do. For the loved one, spouse, and relative it’s a practical guide to what you might expect at each stage and offers realistic and reasonable coping strategies. It includes examples born of the experience of a range of people — professionals in the field as well as no-professionals like yourself — of what you might experience on this difficult journey.Yet, as we’ve said, each death is individual just as are the relationships, personalities and personal dynamics involved in each death. Despite the individuality of experience, there are also issues and threads that are universal in human life. This book can act as a practical guide, an encouraging friend, and support, and offers hope for the best possible experience as you help to walk someone home. Across America, 43.5 million people, (nearly one in five adults) care for a loved one 50 or older according to AARP.The Writers:Sue Collins has been a nurse for 38 years and a hospice nurse for 28 years. She has the extensive experience of the professional caregiver and has seen virtually everything at the end of life. As much as anything this book arises out of the OMG!I-can’t-believe-they-said-that/did-that moments as well as the anger, frustration, grace and poignancy she has witnessed during the last days of patients for whom she has cared.Nancy Taylor Robson, author of three other books, lost her father to bone cancer, which took approximately three years from diagnosis to departure, and her mother-in-law to a long decline and a series of strokes. She has sat by deathbeds and seen more than one friend through the last months, weeks, days and hours of life and knows that as painful a journey as this is, there can be gifts and blessings along the way. She knows, (at least intellectually), that none of us is getting out of here alive.
Every death is individual.What truly matters between human beings at this time? It offers: tips for coping with the physical challenges; advice on paperwork and practicalities; stories; humor. Browse the chapter headings. Skip around in TIPS. Search the Sources lists. Read the stories.
This book is a guide, an encouraging friend and support, and offers hope for the best possible experience as you help to walk someone ‘home.’
Across America, 43.5 million people, Nearly one in five adults cares for a loved one 50 or older according to AARP.
Daftar Isi
CHAPTER ONE: The Oh Shit Moment; What Is a Proactive Approach?; Doctors Don’t Have the Calendar; Care Versus Cure; Tell The Children; What About Adult Children?; Resources
CHAPTER TWO: Ok, Now What?: It’s Still Their Life: Paperwork and Practicalities; Rally The Troops (Unless You Plan to Keep It Private); Considerations and Common Worries
CHAPTER THREE: People Die The Way They Live; Personality Times Ten; The Mom Syndrome: That’s A Medical Term; Which is Harder? Slow or Fast?
CHAPTER FOUR: Smile at Me; What Can I Say?; Breathe; Laugh; Things Not To Say; What The Dying Want; To Ease Open Dialogue
CHAPTER FIVE: Caregiver 101; Stocking The Sickroom; Safety First for You and The Person; Use Good Body Mechanics; Bathing; TIP for Giving Regular Medication; When Giving Medication; Change of Watch TIP; Bedsores; For Someone Who Is Very Close to Leaving
CHAPTER SIX: Caring for The Caregiver; Taking Care of Your Body; Taking Care of Your Spirit; Keep Up Your Social Life; Keep a Journal; Enlisting Help Without Guilt; How to Know You Need More Help; What To Do
CHAPTER SEVEN: Food and The Casserole Brigade; Do’s And Don’t’s; When to Stop Feeding; The Dehydration Question
CHAPTER EIGHT: Drugs Are Good: Say Yes to Drugs; Clarifying The Pain to Inform The Physician; Dosage Is Only A Number: Different Strokes for Different Folks; A Word About Side Effects
CHAPTER NINE: When to Call In The Professionals; Many Caregivers Put off Calling Hospice Because They Think…; Hospice Facts; What You Should Know About Calling in Hospice; What Exactly IS Hospice?; Where Is Hospice Provided?; What Does Hospice Cover?; Hospice Co-Pay; Alzheimer’s Dementia, Debility, Oh My
CHAPTER TEN: How To Sit With The Actively Dying; Cold Hands Cold Feet; Yes, Virginia, They Can Hear You; The Face Tells All; Take A Breath; Do Not Lie In Bed Next To An Actively Dying Person; Anticipatory Grief aka The Eeyore Syndrome; The Parade; Caregiver and Visitor TIPS; The Shift;The Smile
CHAPTER ELEVEN: Peace In The Stillness
CHAPTER TWELVE: Aftermath: The First Months; Don’t Stand On Ceremony; The Rest Is Silence – For A While; Pause; Rewinding and Replaying: Shoulda Coulda; Breathe; There Might Be Dragons; Simultaneously Raw, Vulnerable And Numb; The Six-Month Hump
CHAPTER THIRTEEN: Now, Push Forward
CHAPTER FOURTEEN: Stay Open; Let the Memories Come; Where Do We Go from Here?; In Time What Really Matters
TEAR OUT LISTS
FOOD FOR THOUGHT: Recipes
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