Author: Richard Wagner

I am the author of The Amateur's Guide To Death and Dying; Enhancing the End of Life and publisher of this website.
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7 Books on Navigating Grief

— Psychologists, counselors and other experts share the titles they recommend most.

By Hope Reese

Joanna Luttrell is well acquainted with grief. The bereavement coordinator supports families that are navigating a child’s terminal illness at St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital in Memphis.

From the moment they receive a diagnosis until a year after the loss, “I send letters, resources, emails,” Ms. Luttrell said, so that families know they have support. A big part of the process, she added, involves sharing books.

If there’s a “challenging relationship or situation, I might send out a book right away,” she said. “If they’re looking to process their experience, and their emotional response to their experience, I will send one a bit later.”

While grief is universal, it’s complicated and highly individualized, Ms. Luttrell said. Reading books can provide perspective and help mourners feel less alone, she has found.

We asked Ms. Luttrell, as well as counselors, psychologists and other experts on loss, to recommend the most helpful books about grief.

The cover of "Understanding Your Grief" by Alan D. Wolfelt Ph. D is green with black and green text.

1. Understanding Your Grief, Alan D. Wolfelt

Among the experts we spoke to, nearly all cited Alan Wolfelt, the founder of the Center for Loss and Life Transition, as their No. 1 author on grief.

In this book, first published in 1992, Dr. Wolfelt offers concrete steps toward healing. He helps people who have just lost someone and are having trouble thinking straight understand that “there’s nothing wrong with them,” said Audri Beugelsdijk, vice president of survivor services at the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors.

Dr. Wolfelt’s presentation of the material is “comprehensive, easy to read, and accessible to the general audience,” Ms. Luttrell said. “It’s easy to get overwhelmed when you are already emotionally challenged. So reading a little bit at a time can be very helpful as you work through your grief.”

The book cover to "It's OK That You're Not OK" by Megan Devine is white with a wooden chair in the right side of the cover. The book title is in dark blue. <

2. It’s OK That You’re Not OK, by Megan Devine

In this accessible book, published in 2018, Megan Devine, a therapist and bereaved partner, offers stories, research and advice to people who are navigating grief, as well as those who support them.

She also unpacks the myth that we need to “fix” grief, said Andy McNiel, senior adviser of youth programs at Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors. “In our society, we’re very one-dimensional in the way we talk about our experiences,” he said. “You’re either OK or you’re not OK. And the reality is, you can be OK and not OK at the same time.”

The cover of "Man's Search for Meaning" by Victor E. Frankl is purple. The title is in white text and the author's name is in black.

3. Man’s Search for Meaning, by Viktor E. Frankl

When the psychiatrist Viktor Frankl was imprisoned in Nazi death camps during World War II, he made a conscious effort to survive by observing, taking notes and reflecting on his higher purpose. In 1946, he published these reflections on survival in “Man’s Search for Meaning.”

This book is “truly a classic,” said Dr. David Spiegel, a medical director at the Center for Integrative Medicine at Stanford University School of Medicine. “Frankl reminds us that when we cannot change our situation, our choices still matter.”

The cover of "A Heart That Works" by Rob Delaney is tan with a photo of the author holding his son on the cover.

4. A Heart That Works, by Rob Delaney

Rob Delaney’s son was diagnosed with a brain tumor as a 1-year-old and died two and a half years later. In this 2022 title, Mr. Delaney, a comedian known for his role on the Amazon Prime series “Catastrophe,” explores the full range of his emotional journey during these years and in the aftermath of the loss.

Ms. Luttrell recommends the book often to grieving families because “it’s hard to find good books from a father’s perspective,” she said. “If you’re working with a profoundly grieving father, or a man who just lost his wife, or just wants to talk to another man, having that male perspective is really, really helpful,” she said.

The cover of "Notes on Grief" by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is tan with a painting of a flower in a glass of water and a book on a desk.

5. Notes on Grief, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

In the summer of 2020, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s father died. Less than a year later, the acclaimed novelist published this memoir, sharing her personal experience of grief.

“This book is relatable to readers who are in the depths of grief, who are trying to process their own feelings and their embodied experiences around the loss of a loved one,” said Michelle Peterie, a sociologist and researcher at the University of Sydney.

Ms. Adichie conveys that “grief is a physical experience as much as it is just an emotional experience,” Dr. Peterie said. “Adichie talks about pounding the floor with her fists and about her heart beating so fast and seeming like it’s going to run away from her. ”

“We experience grief in our bodies,” she said, “and Adichie does a really good job of capturing that.”

The cover of "The Year of Magical Thinking" by Joan Didion is a pale yellow with the title and author's name in dark blue.

6. The Year of Magical Thinking, by Joan Didion

This 2005 title, from one of America’s most renowned writers is “a window into what living with grief day in, day out, is really like,” said Amber Jeffrey, host of “The Grief Gang” podcast.

“It’s really hard to quantify that first year — couple of years — after a loss, to explain the kind of delusional thoughts you have without sounding completely mad,” she said. “This book does that.”

“The Year of Magical Thinking” also helped Ms. Beugelsdijk, who now works with the families of veterans, through her own personal loss. “My version of magical thinking is that my husband is still on deployment. He’s going to come back and I’m going to be OK.”

The book also challenges the notion that the first year after a death is the hardest, Mr. McNiel said. “In reality, in the first year, there’s a lot of unknowns and sometimes just denial and struggle,” he said. “The second year sets in, and many people say that that’s when their grief is the most intense.”

The cover of "Michael Rosen's Sad Book" is blue with a drawing of a man in the middle of a grey and white background.

7. Sad Book, by Michael Rosen, illustrated by Quentin Blake

When Michael Rosen’s 18-year-old son, Eddie, died of meningitis, he teamed up with Quentin Blake, an illustrator most known for his work with Roald Dahl, to create a picture book called the “Sad Book.” The book, published in 2004, can be illuminating for both children and adults who are grieving a loved one.

“There’s something about grief that’s really hard to articulate,” Dr. Peterie said. This book “captures something really fundamental about grief as a lived and felt experience, because it’s not purely dependent on words.” The medium allows grieving people to “have part of their experience echoed back to them,” she said.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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Understanding Hospice

— The emotional difficulties of hospice care have made it underutilized and, to some, taboo — medical professionals are trying to change that

By

Carla Thompson has worked in hospice care for more than two decades, and she knows first-hand just how difficult it can be to make end-of-life decisions.

“You can’t always see the future,” says Thompson, a registered nurse and administrative director for Bon Secours Home Health & Hospice. “When you’re given a diagnosis, you have all these treatment options in front of you. You have to make decisions to keep trying to cure the disease or choose to live with it, focusing on comfort and spending time with family.”

Thompson’s daughter Jessica died last year in hospice services at the age of 31. She fought fiercely for years, but when her breast cancer came back despite aggressive treatment, the family knew it was time to enlist hospice care.

“Jess wasn’t laying in the bed waiting to die,” Thompson says. “She was able to stay home for three months, get the support she needed, and spend time with her four children. She was given medications to help her be comfortable and functional for as long as she possibly could. She was at peace.”

Her hospice team managed her pain and symptoms, brought in a hospital bed and other equipment and provided frequent medical care, services that Thompson says are a blessing for patients as well as their caregivers.

Bon Secours is one of about two dozen hospice providers in Central Virginia. On any given day, hundreds of Richmond-area nurses, chaplains, social workers, home health aides, volunteers and physicians are paying home visits to terminally ill patients, providing them with critical and compassionate support.

Destigmatizing Hospice

While the concept of hospice care dates to medieval times, the first hospice practice in the United States was founded just 50 years ago by a nurse, two doctors and a chaplain who believed patients should pass in their own comfortable environment. Since then, it’s expanded to many providers in all states with two major directions: palliative care and hospice care. In most cases, patients in palliative care are still seeking active treatment, while patients in hospice have a terminal diagnosis and have forgone or exhausted treatment options.

Zach Holt, CEO of Crater Community Hospice in Petersburg, says after 15 years in the business he’s still surprised how many people have misconceptions about hospice. His company is part of a statewide coalition of hospice services working to raise awareness of its benefits. According to a recent report by American Health Rankings, Virginia is 30th in the nation for hospice use, with less than half of Virginians who are eligible for hospice choosing services.

“There’s a big stigma,” Holt says. “People think it’s designed for your last days of life when, in reality, it’s designed for your last six months of life. Studies have shown people across all disease states typically live longer on hospice than they do not on hospice. Our specialized teams are equipped to give patients a higher level of comfort.”

Trish Evans, a registered nurse and director of VCU Health Hospice, admits that hospice is a scary word and fear is a contributing factor for low utilization. “People don’t want to think about death and dying,” she says. “But it’s not about giving up, it’s about your quality of life. It’s a choice on how you want to spend your time with a terminal diagnosis if those are the cards that have been dealt to you.”

Holt encourages Virginians who qualify for hospice to sign up earlier, before they are actively dying, to receive the full benefit. According to the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization, the median stay for patients in hospice care is 18 days, while Medicare approves stays that are 10 times longer.

Another misconception that leads people to avoid hospice is the possible high cost; in most cases, it’s financially reasonable. According to Debt.org, more than 90 percent of hospice care is covered by Medicare, and patients may be covered through private insurance and charity care.

On the personal end, Evans points out that some believe hospice patients are permanently bedridden at home. “Life can go on,” she says. “There are hair appointments and vacations and family events. We want to give patients the support they need and the comfort they need to continue to do those things before the end stage of their disease.”

Pediatric Hospice Care

When the unimaginable happens and a child is given a life-limiting diagnosis, Noah’s Children provides palliative and hospice services at no cost to families. While run by Bon Secours Richmond, Noah’s Children partners with all health systems in Central Virginia to help families navigate the most harrowing times.

In addition to nurses, physicians, social workers and chaplains, Noah’s Children employs a music therapist, an art therapist and bereavement counselors who visit the patient’s home. They also offer programming for parents and siblings. Nurses are available to attend doctor’s visits, helping parents manage complex treatment plans from multiple sub-specialists.

“We want to debunk the myth that we’re focused on death,” says Dr. Kelly Lastrapes, Noah’s Children medical director. “We’re focused on the best life children can live for as long as they can.”

Planning Ahead

Holt recommends that everyone of all ages have an advanced directive, a legal document that indicates an individual’s health care wishes. “As a society, we don’t like to talk about death, but you have to get uncomfortable and have those conversations,” he says. “I see close-knit families get ripped apart when they haven’t discussed end-of-life care. One sister thinks one way, one sister thinks another, but Mom never told them what she wanted.”

Holt advises families to discuss financials and set realistic expectations. “You hear parents all the time joke about not putting them in a nursing home, so discuss the alternatives,” he says.

As a society, we don’t like to talk about death, but you have to get uncomfortable and have those conversations.
—Zach Holt, CEO of Crater Community Hospice

Some states with high hospice use, like Oregon and Maine, have also passed legislation allowing patients with terminal diseases to self-administer life-ending medication. The Death with Dignity National Center reports that legislation not only eases suffering but brings important conversations about death and dying out of the shadows and into the spotlight. The Virginia Senate passed a “Death with Dignity” bill in February, but members of the House of Delegates chose to table the bill until 2025.

Richmond-area hospice experts recommend that any time a family member has been diagnosed with a terminal illness, they should work with their medical team to prepare a treatment plan as well as an end-of-life plan.

Lastrapes adds that it’s helpful to keep a 10,000-foot view of the patient’s care, understand the trajectory of the prognosis, and set goals early on. While life is filled with unknowns, surrounding yourself with the right people can help ease the pain.

“When you’re born, you have a room full of people to support that baby,” Evans says. “It should be very similar when your life is over. It’s the one thing we’re all going to experience. You should have the ability to surround yourself with your family and your pets and those people who can support you and keep you comfortable.”

Choosing a Hospice Provider

  • Start your hospice conversation with your health care team and ask about preferred partners.
  • Medicare patients can enter their ZIP code at medicare.gov to find certified providers in the Richmond area.
  • Talk to friends, family and neighbors about their experiences with hospice.
  • Once you narrow down several hospice providers, interview them about specific services, additional resources, areas of specialty, organizational culture, religious affiliation and other differentiating factors that are important to you or your family.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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Understanding Palliative Care

— And when it may help

By Dr. Rachel L. Ombres AHN

Caring for people with serious illnesses or chronic conditions is one of health care’s most complicated — and important — challenges.

While medicine continues to improve the way we treat diseases such as cancer or heart failure, it doesn’t always do a great job of caring for the things that matter most to patients and their families, such as physical and emotional distress.

And despite their frequent visits to doctors and hospitals, people living with serious medical conditions may still have unaddressed symptoms like pain or fatigue, and often report poor communication about those symptoms with their health care providers.

In other words, medicine is pretty great at treating the disease — but not as good at caring for the whole person.

That’s where palliative care specialists enter the picture, helping people live and feel better throughout the course of a serious illness.

Palliative care is a growing field of medicine that focuses on helping patients and their families cope with the physical and emotional stressors of advancing health problems. There is strong evidence that palliative care not only can improve quality of life for seriously ill patients, but also may reduce avoidable hospital admissions and enable patients to spend more time at home doing what matters most to them.

What is palliative care?

Palliative care focuses on providing people with relief from the symptoms and stressors of serious illnesses, such as cancer, chronic heart or lung disease, dementia, neurologic diseases like Parkinson’s, chronic liver disease, kidney failure, and many others.

Delivered by a specialty-trained team of doctors, nurses, social workers and other clinicians, palliative care provides expertise in symptom management, care coordination and communication, with the goal of improving quality of life for both the patient and their loved ones. Palliative care is appropriate for people at any age, and any stage of a serious illness.

Importantly, palliative care is not the same thing as hospice.

While palliative care is led by clinicians specifically trained in that field, it’s provided in collaboration with other health care providers, including primary care doctors and specialists — and, unlike hospice care, it can be administered at the same time that the patient is receiving curative treatment, and at any stage of serious illness from the time of initial diagnosis.

A person with cancer undergoing chemotherapy, for example, might benefit from palliative care, as would a person with lung disease seeking a lung transplant. In fact, when people facing a serious illness receive palliative care early in their disease and alongside treatment for their underlying condition, evidence demonstrates that it may even prolong survival.

Unfortunately, the historical misunderstanding about palliative care’s association with hospice — and the general lack of awareness about palliative medicine as a specialty, even among providers — means that millions of people who could benefit from palliative care don’t get it.

Worldwide, only about 14% of people who need palliative care currently receive it, according to the World Health Organization.

Where can I receive palliative care?

Palliative care is provided in all settings. To best meet the needs of their patients, palliative care teams see people in the hospital, outpatient clinics, nursing facilities — and even in the comfort of their own homes.

Providing home and community-based palliative care is not only convenient for patients and their families, but it also aims to reduce certain complications of advanced illness that would otherwise require emergency room visits and hospitalizations.

The benefits — patients who feel better, have fewer unnecessary hospitalizations and have more support during stressful times — are attractive to patients, families and insurers alike. As a result, insurance providers such as Medicare are changing the way they reimburse for home-based palliative services, while health systems and other agencies are actively expanding access to palliative care across Pennsylvania and nationwide.

Today, there are more options than ever for home- and community-based palliative care.

How palliative care can help: One patient’s story

Barbara had just retired from a career in management at a local grocery store. She looked forward to the added time retirement would give her to do what mattered most, like spend time with her family and tend to her garden.

Unfortunately, a new cancer diagnosis thwarted these plans, and she was soon spending more time in the chemotherapy suite than with her grandchildren or her prized perennials. Barbara’s pain and fatigue prevented her from being active outside and limited her appetite.

When her primary care provider referred her to palliative care, Barbara was unsure what to expect.

The palliative physician suggested several interventions to help Barbara feel and function better, including medication changes and gentle exercise techniques, and provided additional resources for her family. The palliative care team also helped Barbara understand her care options and encouraged her to speak up about her preferences to her other health care providers and to her loved ones, so that everyone was on the same page about supporting her goals.

In time, these interventions helped lessen Barbara’s symptoms and streamline her care. Throughout her cancer journey, the palliative care team has remained a constant layer of support for Barbara and her family. With close attention to her goals and symptoms, the palliative care team helps Barbara live as well as possible, despite having a serious illness.

If you or a loved one has a serious medical condition, ask your doctor or insurance provider about a referral to palliative care.

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New online tool helps people with dementia document future care decisions

By Eric Galatas

The number of U.S. residents aged 65 or older living with Alzheimer’s disease, the most common form of dementia, is expected to double from nearly 7 million to 14 million by 2050, according to a new report.

Dementia is a progressive disease which gets worse over time, eventually making it impossible to communicate or make decisions.

Jessica Empeño, national director of clinical engagement and education for Compassion & Choices, explained a new online tool can help people plan ahead so their wishes can be honored.

“The people around them — whether it be their family, their loved ones, their health care team — know what is important to that person and what types of care they hope for in the future,” Empeño emphasized.

Compassion & Choices’ free Dementia Values and Priorities tool is designed to help people communicate and document their future health care wishes before developing or in early-stage dementia. A series of questions and educational videos guides users through a range of changes commonly seen in the disease’s progression.

Kim Martin, a resident of the southwest Colorado town of Hesperus, used the tool after receiving her Alzheimer’s diagnosis. She had become increasingly anxious about what the future would bring and said the tool helped her specify her intentions so her husband and children would have no doubts about how to support her.

“Being able to get it all on paper and tell it to my family really improved my outlook and really improved my ability to move past that stage,” Martin noted.

Empeño stressed the value of documenting end-of-life health care decisions cannot be overstated, especially for women, who represent nearly two-thirds of Americans 65 or older living with Alzheimer’s. She encouraged people to use the tool, share the documents with the people you love and trust, and help them understand what is most important to you.

“While completing the legal documents is really important, the most important point is having the conversation,” Empeño pointed out. “The best way for you to get the kind of care that you want, especially at the end of life, is to have those really important conversations.”

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Patients limited from accessing Voluntary Assisted Dying at some hospitals and palliative care units

Miki says she and her mother felt they had to choose between getting the best possible care or the best possible death.

By Annika Blau

It’s July 2021, and Miki is begging for help.

Her mum is trying to ask her doctor something, but in recent weeks, she’s lost the ability to speak.

Miki’s mum has motor neurone disease (MND) and her only means of communicating is with a letter board, where she blinks to spell out what she’s trying to say.

She needs staff from her hospital to operate the equipment, but they’re refusing to be involved.

“It really sent a … message that what we were doing was wrong,” Miki says.

Eventually, Miki’s begging reaches the hospital CEO, who grants special permission for an occupational therapist to set up the letter board.

“There were rules that [the occupational therapist] could set my mum up with the equipment, but they were not to be present in the room for any conversations,” Miki says.

And then, letter by letter, Miki’s mum blinks to spell out her request: She wants to die.

Voluntary assisted dying (VAD) has been legal in Victoria since 2019, meaning people like Miki’s mum who are suffering from a degenerative condition can choose to take certain medication to end their life.

But healthcare providers can refuse to facilitate VAD if they object to it on ethical grounds.

This is the situation Miki and her mother found themselves in.

“I was really shocked to learn that a publicly funded hospital could have policies that existed on ideological or religious grounds,” Miki says.

“Someone like my mum, who can’t talk, can’t move, can’t advocate for themselves… is facing just about as many barriers as a person can face. So every little hurdle that’s added to that is just an enormous stress to overcome.”

‘Forbidden to raise the topic’

At her home in the west of Melbourne, Miki stops in the hallway and gazes into a bedroom.

It’s stacked floor to ceiling with boxes — her mum’s entire life — but Miki can’t bear to face it just yet.

Her mum was a dance teacher and later a librarian, but when she started having falls in 2019, she was diagnosed with MND.

A photograph of a woman with dark hair sits beside an open jewellery box containing a pearl necklace.
Miki’s mother was a dance teacher and later worked as a librarian. 

Miki’s mum was living in South Australia at the time, but they were told one of the best places to get care for MND was in Melbourne, at Calvary Bethlehem Hospital.

“We also knew she’d be able to access VAD in Victoria, which she couldn’t in South Australia, so we moved her over,” Miki says.

What they didn’t realise was that Calvary Bethlehem is one of 21 public Catholic hospitals around Australia with a blanket policy against VAD.

Miki noticed right from the first appointment “an undercurrent of nervousness in everyone we spoke to at Calvary Bethlehem — if you mentioned VAD, it was like hitting a brick wall.”

But they didn’t know where else to turn. To Miki, switching hospitals felt like choosing between the best possible care, and the best possible death.

“As we understood it, Calvary Bethlehem was the place that people with MND go. It was never discussed with us that there was an alternative that might be better able to support my mum’s desire to apply for VAD,” Miki says.

A woman gazes into a room stacked high with moving boxes.
Miki had her mum’s possessions remotely packed and moved from South Australia during the pandemic. By the time her mother was ready to apply for VAD, they were both exhausted.

One doctor, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told Background Briefing that referring doctors can’t warn their patients about Calvary Bethlehem’s stance, because raising VAD with a patient is illegal.

Doctors can only answer questions about VAD if the patient raises it first, and many have not yet considered it when they’re first diagnosed and choosing a hospital.

“Patients who are inadvertently admitted to Catholic hospitals may never learn of their rights and as doctors we are not allowed to educate them — the questions must come from them,” the doctor said.

“I am forbidden by law to raise the topic. Therein lies a massive problem.”

The doctor said they’d had to remove patients from Calvary Bethlehem’s “superb service” due to its refusal to be involved in VAD.

In a statement, Calvary Bethlehem confirmed the team caring for Miki’s mother were following its policy of not being involved with VAD.

It said it responds “openly, sensitively and respectfully to anyone expressing a wish to explore VAD” and “would not block a person’s access”.

Miki's mum's necklace
Miki says her mum’s decline was “swift and devastating”. “On the one side of [Melbourne’s] lockdown she could hug me and on the other she couldn’t.”

Personal views influencing policy

Objection to VAD is also prevalent in the palliative care sector, where Catholic-run organisations are major players.

But objection is not limited to faith-based organisations — many secular public facilities also refuse to be involved.

QUT Professor of end of life law and regulation, Ben White, says the policy for entire institutions is often influenced by the views of individuals in leadership positions.

Professor White interviewed dozens of families in Victoria about accessing VAD.

He says the majority described objection by healthcare facilities, with their loved ones blocked from having VAD doctors or pharmacists visit, or prohibited from taking the medication on site.

Objection was particularly problematic for regional families he interviewed, who “didn’t have the ability to just go to the next institution down the road,” he says.

A man wearing a suit and tie and glasses stands smiling in front of a shelf full of books.
QUT Professor of end of life law and regulation Ben White.

‘He scolded me’

Like Miki, Julius Pieker had to watch his mother decline during the pandemic.

She had ovarian cancer, and after a bad fall, was sent to Wantirna Palliative Care Unit — a secular public facility servicing Melbourne’s eastern suburbs.

During her stay, she summoned Julius to her bedside and told him she wanted to use VAD. Under the legislation, this is available to anyone expected to die within six months.

“I said to her, look, we’ll support you in whatever you want to do,” he says.

Julius looked around the facility for someone to tell, and spied his mother’s doctor.

But the doctor’s reaction floored Julius.

“He scolded me. And tried to say that I was not to encourage my mum to do this,” Julius says.

“I was distressed by him making that sort of accusation that I would do that, and I told him so.”

Julius says the doctor was silent.

“He didn’t try to console me or say, you know, ‘I didn’t mean to give you the wrong impression’. He was just like stone,” he says.

Legally, there’s no obligation for objecting doctors to refer people like Julius on to a service that might be able to provide more information.

“I was left feeling that I had nowhere to go after I spoke to that one person,” Julius says.

What Julius didn’t realise was that until recently, Wantirna had been transferring patients who requested VAD out of this public facility.

“I didn’t know about the politics of palliative care,” Julius says.

“They have no right to stop people from accessing [VAD], because it’s legal.”

Julius’s mum was transferred back to the public hospital she’d initially come from, where she was able to access the VAD medication to end her life.

Melbourne oncologist, Prasad Cooray, says the transferring of patients out of Wantirna has been an “ongoing problem” for him and his colleagues.

In some instances, patients have been transferred upon requesting a VAD permit — before they even decide whether to go ahead with using the medication.

“[Transferring patients] takes away dignity and adds unnecessary distress to these last moments of their lives,” Dr Cooray says.

A man wearing a light grey jacket sits side on on a stool smiling at the camera with a dark grey backdrop behind
Melbourne oncologist Prasad Cooray says the transferring of patients has been an ‘ongoing problem’.

His biggest fear has been that one of his patients could die in the back of an ambulance during a transfer — “a dying patient is dying, unstable,” he says.

Patients can also be distraught on having to move facilities, and feel chastised, he says.

“It’s a judgement that’s passed upon you. How terrible is that — that we are passing a judgement on the dying patient in a place where we need to be infusing humanity and love?”

The other public palliative care centre in Dr Cooray’s catchment is Caritas Christi, a Catholic organisation with limitations around VAD.

The main option left for patients wanting VAD has been the acute medical wards of local hospitals, which Dr Cooray says are “one step down from an emergency department” and “not designed for dying”.

“Palliative care places are … a much more peaceful environment, as homely as you can make it,” Dr Cooray says.

“These institutions exist for the benefit and for serving the patients.

“And I do not understand how it’s been flipped around that it exists to serve the conscientious objections of staff. Those people should … step aside and allow people who do not have objections to carry it out in that place.”

In other instances, patients had been transferred home, where families often felt ill-equipped to provide 24/7 care for their dying loved one.

Dr Cooray said the local health authority, Eastern Health, had been long aware of the situation at its Wantirna Palliative Care Unit.

But last year, Victoria’s VAD Board got involved after a complaint from a patient’s family.

Eastern Health then changed its guidelines to mandate that VAD be accessible at all its sites, and in recent months, Wantirna stopped transferring patients seeking VAD.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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Nobody Likes Dealing with Death

— Until They Attend One of Amy Pickard’s Humorous ‘Good To Go!’ Parties

By Cheryl Maguire

When Amy Pickard’s mother died suddenly in 2012, she was understandably grief-stricken. But she also felt frustrated and overwhelmed, since her mother didn’t plan ahead for her death.

“I would have given anything to talk to my mom just one more time, but it wasn’t to hear her tell me she loved me; I needed her to tell me the friggin’ Wi-Fi password!” Pickard says.

Since her mother lived far away, Pickard didn’t know what bills needed to be paid or what to do with her mother’s now-deceased body.

“I just said, can you put her [body] on ice? Because I have no idea what is going on,” Pickard recalls. In an effort to normalize death and create a death-positive movement, Pickard teaches people how to throw a death party and add some humor to the inevitable and often daunting end-of-life duties.

Dealing with uncomfortable death duties

Pickard refers to all of the different decisions that need to be made and tasks that need to be completed after someone dies as “death duties.” She says these duties are “the hellscape of details forced upon a grieving loved one after their person dies.” This includes responsibilities such as cleaning their house and sorting their belongings, making funeral arrangements, settling their finances and closing their estate.

After her horrible experience with her mother’s death duties, Pickard wanted to help others avoid the same issues. “I was preaching the gospel of advanced planning to my friends,” she says. Surprised at how her friends took to the lessons, Pickard thought, “I have a message here. And it’s landing.”

In 2014, she created a long list of questions related to when someone dies. The list was a booklet called Departure File, which she still sells today. She included, “all the minute, everyday things that came up that I had no answer to, like ‘Do you have a storage space?’”

“Good To Go!” death parties are changing the narrative

Pickard realized most people think of death and dying as morbid and creepy, so they don’t like to talk about it. She also knew most people would probably not want to answer the questions in the Departure File, so she decided to create a party where everyone filled out the answers.

“I thought, ‘I’m a good communicator, I’m an extrovert and I have a sense of humor, so why not have a party?’” she says.

During the parties, Pickard tapped into her sense of humor by creating death-themed soundtracks with songs like “Another One Bites the Dust” and “Stairway to Heaven.” She also had everyone bring a potluck dish based on the recipe of a loved one.

She didn’t have a business plan when she started; instead, she learned as she went along and as her business evolved. Her parties are now referred to as “Good To Go!” parties, though guests have also described them as “Death Tupperware Parties” or “Fete du Mort” shindigs.

People who attended the initial parties “were blown away by it—all of us felt a beautiful kind of electricity in the room,” Pickard recalls, noting that no one else was hosting these types of events. “It is unbelievable how important this is, and how in denial our entire society is over the one absolute positive thing that we know with 100% certainty is going to happen,” she says.

Normalizing the death-positive movement

In a bid to overturn this cultural thinking, Pickard considers herself to be part of the death-positive movement—a way of thinking that encourages people to have end-of-life celebrations and speak openly about death, dying and corpses.

The modern-day concept of the death-positive movement dates back to the 1970s, but the death-positive movement was further popularized in 2011 by Caitlin Doughty, a mortician who believes people should change their perceptions about death. On her website, The Order of the Good Death, Doughty says death should be a part of your life. “Accepting that death itself is natural, but the death anxiety and terror of modern culture are not,” Doughty states on her website.

When Pickard’s father died, the experience was opposite that of her mother’s death. Pickard attributes that to the fact that he filled out the Departure File and talked openly with her about advanced planning. When she first created the Departure File, she wanted to help others and didn’t consider how it could one day help her. Like her mother, her father died suddenly. When he was intubated in the hospital, she gave a copy of his Departure File that included his advanced care directive to the staff. Their response was, “No one ever does this. This is amazing.”

Before Pickard’s father passed away, she said to him, “You know that everything is taken care of.” She says the look of peace on his face in response brought her comfort. It was at that moment she understood that advanced planning also brings peace to a person before they die.

“It was such a weird, ironic moment that the company that I created for others actually helped me and helped my grief,” she says. “With [my dad’s] instruction, I felt empowered. I felt I was honoring him.” The directions he provided also eliminated any uncertainty she may have faced making decisions about duties related to his death.

Planning for death is planning your life

Even though “Good To Go!” parties are humorous and lighthearted, there are still times, understandably, when people are grieving. Pickard handles these situations by offering a tissue and trying to help them understand that, “when you plan for your death, it’s actually planning your life.”

She explains that people prepare for natural disasters by stocking up on candles and getting a generator, but they don’t plan for their death. “We spend more time building a burrito than we do thinking about what we want to happen when we die,” she says. Advanced planning is a way of letting people know how you want to be remembered, she adds.

Pickard recently expanded her business to help people declutter their homes while simultaneously creating advanced planning regarding their material things. She refers to this task as legacy organizing.

“I am helping people organize their homes for their death,” she says. She explains that her services are similar to that of a “death concierge.” She says, “I encourage people to clean out their places with their families. And that way, you make new memories. It’s actually fun.”

This lighthearted approach to death and advanced planning underscores Pickard’s mission with “Good To Go!” parties. “I’m not a doctor; I’m not a lawyer. I am just literally a girl that’s lived through grief and wants to help other people get through it too.”

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After Unthinkable Loss, Biking Helped Me Embrace Life Again

— A grieving mother finds a new beginning on two wheels.

By Jess Mayhugh

My first bike was lavender and had Big Bird on it, a sight to behold under the Christmas tree. I rode that thing until the training wheels practically fell off — gliding around our back alley, cutting through baseball fields and, much to my mom’s horror, thudding down our basement stairs one afternoon.

Luckily, that incident didn’t scare me off bikes, and I continued to ride into my teenage years. But a driver’s license meant I abandoned my bike. The wheels stopped rotating, the bell stopped ringing and my helmet stayed clipped in a dim corner of our basement.

My mom died following a grueling battle with multiple sclerosis when I was barely 18. For years afterward, I distracted myself with college-aged escapism: moving away, making new friends, sneaking into bars, taking road trips and ultimately earning a degree.

I would head home for breaks and holidays, driving around in my mom’s old Hyundai Excel hatchback. Every winding turn reminded me that, while I was moving through life and becoming an adult, part of me was still stuck in place. Only during these drives would I allow myself to feel the weight of losing her. I thought grieving was something you did alone.

***

I returned to biking when a lot of people did, at the beginning of the pandemic. I bought a beach cruiser on Craigslist and spent my evenings whizzing along the Baltimore waterfront amid a sea of dog walkers and other pedestrians trying to figure out what was going on in the world.

My husband and I moved to a much hillier part of town at the end of 2020. I took advantage of flat trails where I could, but spent many evenings walking my bike up inclines, pathetically, as joggers passed me by. When I got pregnant, I continued cycling, but my growing belly got in the way of my legs and, by the time I hit my third trimester, my form was totally off.

I left my bike in the basement once again to collect dust. But life led me back to it when our newborn daughter, Lucy, died from a birth-related brain injury in the fall of 2022.

My grief looked a lot different than it had two decades prior. I was a mother who had lost a daughter, not the other way around. Instead of veering away from the deep, dark feelings, I was mature enough to realize I had to lean into them.

There was no escaping it — it was on my body, in my husband’s eyes. We both tried every form of therapy we could: individual, couple, physical. I also did the confrontational work that I knew was necessary (seeking out other stories of infant loss, sharing my own). In part, I was caring for that lonely, lost teenager inside of me.

The biggest difference, though, was accepting help from friends and family. Loved ones cleared our house of all the “baby things” while we were still at the hospital and dropped endless amounts of food on our porch. This time, I let myself be cared for; I allowed support to seep into every crevice of my life.

***

A friend invited us on her family’s trip to the Outer Banks, six weeks after I gave birth. I missed being active and was grasping at anything that would bring me happiness. So we dedicated one day of our trip to renting bikes.

I worried about my pelvic floor, so I only intended to ride a couple of miles. But, before long, I had biked 10 through the salty North Carolina air, over boardwalk planks with views of egrets flying up from the dunes. I had missed this feeling of being at once untethered yet in control, and I wanted to take the flat terrain back home with me.

Several months later, after my husband and I had returned to work and attempted to find semblances of normalcy, we took another trip to visit family in northern Maine. A common trope with grieving, people say, is that you no longer “sweat the small stuff.” But, on this trip, I realized the small stuff could actually save me.

My scientist uncle had MacGyvered an electric bike together for my aunt to ride around their remote lake town. I borrowed it one morning and, with occasional help from the motor, I started seeing those rocky hurdles in my rearview mirror. For hours, I coasted up and down hills, through tall Eastern pine trees. I braked for critters, took in lake views and reminded myself — as I’ve often had to do — that there are still ways to experience joy in the wake of unspeakable pain.

I wanted that joy to continue. So, when I returned home, I purchased an e-bike online and took it to the local shop to get it tuned up. I test-rode it in my back alley, just as I had done as a young girl. Then I was off, fearlessly making my way to that too-steep park, knowing I had a safety net when I needed it. With every pedal stroke, I could feel my jaw loosening, heaviness lifting from my shoulders, my heart opening to optimism again. I was finding a way up, and through.

I spent practically every day last fall, a year since our daughter’s death, ably sailing up hills, with twigs and leaves crunching beneath my tires. Most mornings, I listened to playlists or podcasts. But, at the beginning of one ride, my headphones died and I was forced to take in my surroundings, to be fully present. Everywhere I looked, there was such life on display: marching bands practicing routines, disc golfers hurling Frisbees, women taking garden tours at the arboretum, families of deer peeking through the trees.

For the first time since Lucy died, I felt lucky — that I lived so close to these tree-lined trails, that I was able to witness the softer sides of nature, that I could pedal at all.

Now with spring in like a lion, I’m back out riding. When hills come up on the horizon, I don’t let pride stand in the way. I crank up the electric-powered motor a couple of notches and allow it to give me a boost. Slowly, through every swerve and switchback, grief has given way to gratitude. But only because I have help moving through it.

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