Tag: End of Life
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My father’s glasses
Geoff KronikBrookline, Massachusetts, United States I took them with me when I left the hospital that day, but five years later, I still have not put them on. Holding the glasses starts a movie in my memory, a biography of my father, but if I imagine wearing them a stranger appears on the screen. That…
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Charlie
Gaetan SgroPittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States It is a mild Saturday morning in the fall. A breeze is blowing leaves and garbage past the entrance to My Brother’s House, a shelter on South 15th Street, and the sun is shining brightly off the inside of the open door. The door’s black paint is scratched through in…
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Is there a good death?
Frank Gonzalez-CrussiChicago, Illinois, United States Is there a good death? I contend that there is no answer to this question. There is indeed a rare species of questions that are unanswerable, and this is one of them. Those who have escaped from a near-fatal accident, or recovered from a serious illness, or somehow realized that…
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Miriam’s stoicism
Elizabeth NegliaDurham, North Carolina, United States “Refused?” I asked incredulously. She’s in pain on her deathbed. Why would she refuse? Sarah, the night nurse, sleepily rejoined, “I told Miriam to take it, but she won’t. I don’t get it either.” It was 7 am. Sarah was eager to go home, and I needed to start…
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Last words
Dean GianakosVirginia, United States It’s after midnight, and I’m on the phone with the family medicine resident. “Dr. Gianakos? Sorry to wake you. I’m here in the emergency room with Hattie T. I know you know her from previous admissions. Another COPD exacerbation, Dr. G. I’ve given her antibiotics, steroids, and three neb treatments. She…
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Dr. Gianakos, I think he’s awake now
Dean GianakosVirginia, USA It’s 2 am, and I’m on the phone with my first-year resident, Sherry. “Dr. Gianakos, I have one of your patients here in the emergency room, Jack Jones. As you know, Mr. Jones is a 72-year-old man with severe chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. He came in tonight complaining of increasing shortness of…
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Anticipatory grieving
Constance E. PutnamConcord, Massachusetts, United States When my father was making his slow decline into the grip of Parkinson’s disease, I found it easy (embarrassingly so, in retrospect) to criticize my mother for what I confidently labeled her unnecessarily grim view of the situation. She always seemed to me to be looking ahead to how…
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Lessons from the black hole
Columba QuigleyLondon, United Kingdom The episode occurred some few years ago, when I was working in palliative medicine, caring for those with advanced and often incurable disease. As I walked onto the ward early one morning, a woman whom I had been seeing on a daily basis for symptom control started screaming at me. Only…
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Ivan
Christopher H. CameronKelso, United Kingdom It was a time in general practice when doctors still visited patients for other than purely medical reasons. Back then, it was easy to forget why or when a particular visit had started or how it had mysteriously evolved into a regular one. “Chronic” was the often vaguely demeaning term…