Live your best to life’s end.
There’s still lots of life to live–whatever health and medical decisions that may be ahead. For many, feeling ‘alive’ right to the end means feeling useful for as long as possible. For others, it’s peace of mind that brings a peaceful end. For most, it’s feeling wanted, valued, respected and listened-to that are all-important. The pleasures of everyday life can be just as meaningful: what makes you smile, what brings you happiness and joy and what gives you comfort.
It’s often that small stuff that can make a big difference: There are creative ways to accomplish what may seem out of reach – like the man on the rock who may not be able to be physically near an ocean, but may be able to turn to technology to inspire a solution. Paying attention to small pleasures shifts the focus from ‘what I don’t want at life’s end’ to ‘what will make a positive difference to me at life’s end.’ It’s an approach with its own reward: helping someone have the best end can help everyone involved.
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Need Information?
It can be a long road to learning about and planning for the best end-of-life experience. There’s lots to consider and emotions to tackle. Pick your own starting points: personal or medical decisions or specific topics. You can come back for more and then document your end of life wishes
pick a topic
Caring for aging parents: Chronic illness
Heart and kidney failure, frailty, Alzheimer’s, Lung Disease, Diabetes
Palliative Comfort Care and Quality of Life
The Palliative and Hospice approach: comfort and quality of life is what it’s all about
Understanding Medical Terms and Jargon
Cardio Pulmonary Resuscitation: CPR, Do Not Resuscitate: DNR, Allow Natural Death: A.N.D
Traditions, Culture and Being Remembered
Time honored customs can help at life’s end, ways to keep memories alive.
Modern Medicine can keep you alive
End of life: grief and bereavement
Knowing what End of Life looks like can ease the process; often grief starts long before the end.
Decision-Makers: Consent and Conflict
Surrogate, Substitute, Agent, Proxy: who will make sure your end of life wishes are followed.
Advance Directives, Living Will, End of Life Wishes
Create your own end of life, Advance Directives Living Will with an interactive form
Grief and Grieving: death, dying and beyond
Grief and grieving: in life and death For each of us, our Book of Life has many chapters on grief and grieving, covering a broad spectrum: I can still conjure the pang of loss when my youngest went to Kindergarten; the sense of betrayal caused by the end of a...
As we age, do we become too thin-skinned?
In a word: Yep. Our skin thins and gets dry Thin, dry skin often gets itchy. And that can lead to a mess of problems. Hence, the expression: thin-skinned. Perhaps not as talked about as the other issues of aging, but should be – considering how much skin we have. Dr...
Multiple Medications: too many for too many of us
By age 65, two thirds of us are taking 5 or more prescription medications a day so reports the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI). Not included in that total is the number of times a day meds are taken. And it doesn’t include whatever non-prescription...
Allow Natural Death
Dying, death and the evasive language we use Euphemisms for dying and death abound. But what about the words used when telling someone – anyone – that death is near (‘near’ being a relative term). You’re dying may be the hardest words – right up there with ‘I’m sorry’...
Dying at home: a return to the way it was.
There’s an explosion of home care needs coming. “With so many wanting to die at home, we need to know what to do as a healthcare team to support that journey through end of life and beyond: the family goes on although the patient is absent in a physical sense.” ...
Dr Paul Dorian: CPR insights from a man dedicated to our hearts
3 questions about Cardio Pulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) Dr Paul Dorian As always, before launching into questions, I explain my sense about the topic, CPR, to. Dr Paul Dorian "I think we ‘real people’ have neither the information nor the context to make informed...
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