What does death and dying mean to you personally? Has a person close to you died? Do you want to share your own experiences about quality of life or fears about dying? This website offers an incentive for health care professionals, individuals, and organizations to come together and open the channels of communication – the rights of the dying and the rights of the living – to advocate for individual rights.
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Advanced Care Planning
Why is advanced care planning important. I want to be in charge ! I don’t want to be a burden on my family It helps me to realize there will be an end of this life It will take away a lot of the fear of the future and the “what ifs”… My family won’t have to make difficult decisions I don’t want people to suffer while their death is prolonged. These are just some of my thoughts. How about you?
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Quality of Life
Palliative Care is about Quality of Life which can take many forms. There is a Case Study in this website about a gentleman with Alzheimer’s Disease. His attendance at a Senior Day Program is a good example. He became able to communicate positive emotions and creative skills even though his disease process was very “terminal.” How…Maybe just through Unconditional Love ? (Left brain=intellectual and Right brain = intuitive?)
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Suicide…choice or crime.
Quality of Life can also go through change in the mind of a person. I once cared for a young Canadian woman who had attempted suicide after her fiance’ cheated on her. She had come to the United States because of a law. Once upon a time (I think around the 1970’s) if someone found a person who had attempted suicide in Canada and they took them to a hospital, they would then become financially responsible. This young woman sadly said, “If I didn’t die and someone found me, I didn’t want them to be responsible. So, I came here.”
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Safe Passage
What is meant by “Death As a Safe Passage?” It can be viewed in 3 Phases. Phase One – The Love Movement (“Using Death as an Adviser” – a quote from a Carlos Castaneda book.) Phase Two – Prolonged Suffering Versus Supportive Caring (“Whose Life Is It, Anyway?”) Phase Three – Relax, Breathe, and Let Go (“Deathing” or “The Art of Dying”) Please follow a more detailed description under Phases of Death.
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National Healthcare Decision Week – April 11- April 17
Advanced Care Planning is the cornerstone of Vital Comm Lines, Inc. There is now an entire week devoted to encouraging people plan for “tomorrow” and “Take Charge of Your Care”…our company tagline) We are a non-profit organization with the following mission: To support the right of each individual to have their decisions regarding quality of life and end of life honored by health professionals and significant others. Below is an excerpt from Nathan Kottkamp, the founder of National Healthcare Decision Day (on April 16th) I serve on several hospital ethics committees as part of my health law practice, and I
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Cannabis – Safe Access
To coach patients and caregivers in safe, legitimate, integrative cannabinoid health care, as well as collect data related to the efficacy of cannabinoid medicine. To provide guidance accessing “batch-tested” medicinal cannabis products from the most trusted manufactors for the therapeutic use of symptom relief and pain management.
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Burning Van -A lesson in Loss
I moved to Escondido in April 1980 to work on my unfinished business and to learn about self-love. I attended a “Life, Death and Transition” workshop with Elisabeth Kubler-Ross and an additional three weeks of “Intensive Growth Psychodrama” with Marti Barham. I want to share an experience I had one Sunday in October of that year. I was driving my recently purchased 1971 VW van to a convention where a friend and I would sell books and tapes and tell folks more about Elisabeth’s work. On the way, my engine caught fire and the whole van burnt into “junk” before
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Opinion: Aid-In-Dying option
The essence of this conversation is on the debate surrounding the term “Physician-Assisted Suicide.” Most health professional agree that this term (that we’ll call PAS) applies only to patients that are diagnosed as terminally-ill. The debate arises in the ethics or moral implications. My understanding (as in a PBS series I watched) of the Oregon Law supporting PAS is simply about a prescription consisting of enough sedative-type medication to stop respirations much like a “deep” sleep. Of course, there is much involved regarding counseling and hospice management prior to this discussion and making a decision. For more information, you can
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