Tag: Conscious Living

We continue our sneak preview of the ten people who will be joining you in the on-the-page support group in The Amateur’s Guide To Death and Dying; Enhancing the End of Life. You’ll have plenty of opportunity to get to know them better once you start the book, but until then, these thumbnail sketches will serve as a handy reference.

Mia, 31, is a graduate student in Medieval Languages at Stanford University. Several months ago, she landed in the ICU, near death from an acute lung infection. While she was in the hospital she was diagnosed with a rare lung disorder, which was the source of the initial infection. Since that initial hospitalization, she needs to use oxygen and was advised to seriously consider a lung transplant if she expected to live past 35. Mia reluctantly uses the oxygen, but she won’t consider the transplant. She has chosen a different path.

Mia regularly consults a doctor of traditional Chinese medicine, which is consistent with her cultural heritage. She uses a wide array of other modalities, including vitamins, acupuncture, meditation, yoga, massage, and biofeedback. “This is the way I want it. These things make me feel involved and empowered, and that’s more important than anything else.”

Although she likes her American doctor, western medicine leaves her feeling cold and disconnected. She felt robbed of her dignity in the hospital. “They didn’t see me, they just saw my disease.”

Mia was born in Hong Kong, the only daughter of socially prominent and professionally successful parents. She’s lived a charmed and pampered life, but now she knows the downside of living a life of privilege. “Nothing in life prepared me for this kind of adversity.”

Despite her frailty, she has a decidedly tomboyish appearance. She is lively and animated when she speaks. Sometimes she even gets tangled in the plastic tubing that runs from the ever-present oxygen canister to her face. “I haven’t got the hang of this yet. Can you tell?”

The pulse and spritzing sound of the oxygen keeps time with her labored breathing. “I once felt immortal, which now seems weird because I’m starting to realize I could be quite dead in a year.” She has an overriding dread of her final days. “I can’t even imagine what it will be like. I’m sure it’ll be just horrible. I panic when I have to struggle for a breath now. What will it be like then? I sometimes get so frightened I cry.”

We continue our sneak preview of the ten people who will be joining you in the on-the-page support group in The Amateur’s Guide To Death and Dying; Enhancing the End of Life. You’ll have plenty of opportunity to get to know them better once you start the book, but until then, these thumbnail sketches will serve as a handy reference.

Kevin, 39, is living with HIV. He tested positive twelve years ago. Luckily he continues to be asymptomatic.

Kevin’s a music teacher and member of a jazz quartet. He is currently single and shares his house with two roommates.

His lover, Doug, died five years ago just one month shy of their tenth anniversary together. Kevin is trim and buffed. He works out at a local gym four days a week. He is boyishly handsome with tousled red hair. He rides a motorcycle and is a wicked pool player.

“Even though I’ve had many friends die of AIDS, I still have plenty of my own death stuff to deal with.”

He reports that he has recently engaged in some questionable sexual practices. “That’s a sure sign that I’m shoving a lot of this under the carpet. And I know this kind of thing could be, well, a fatal mistake!”

Kevin was born and raised a devout Roman Catholic. His Boston Irish family had high hopes that one day he would become a priest. “I know I disappointed them and I don’t think they ever really got over it. Ya see, when I came out in college I left the church at the same time. It was a preemptive strike, if you want to know the truth. I wasn’t about to wait around for them to throw me out just because I was gay.” His inability to find a suitable spiritual home makes him sad. “Sometimes I feel lost and rudderless. I know God loves me, but the sweet and easy connection I once had with God as a younger man eludes me now.”

Kevin believes it’s important to ritualize the end of life, but doesn’t quite know how to make that happen. “Maybe I’ll get some ideas from the other people in the group.”

We continue our sneak preview of the ten people who will be joining you in the on-the-page support group in The Amateur’s Guide To Death and Dying; Enhancing the End of Life. You’ll have plenty of opportunity to get to know them better once you start the book, but until then, these thumbnail sketches will serve as a handy reference.

Clare, 73, and her husband, Charley, have been married for fifty-three years. They have four children, nine grandchildren, and five great-grandchildren. Clare’s leukemia, which was in remission for over ten years, has recurred. This time it is considered untreatable. She has decided to forego any of the heroic, life-sustaining measures for which modern medicine is so famous. She and her doctors agree that hospice is her best option. “I’ve done my homework. I’ve shopped around. I interviewed all the hospices in town and have chosen the one I feel will honor my wishes for the kind of end-of-life care I want.”

Clare has lived a rich and full life. “I was a career woman long before there was such a thing as a career woman. I’ve always been a take-charge kind of gal. This leukemia may very well kill me, but it will never get the best of me.” Her illness has made her very frail. Her skin is almost translucent. She has an otherworldly look about her, but there is no mistaking her remarkably robust spirit.

Her youngest son Stan, her one and only ally in the family, brought her to the interview and will see that she makes it to each meeting. Stan says, “Oh yeah, she’s feisty all right. There’s no flies on her, and the ones that are there are paying rent.”

Clare’s an avid pantheist. “God is everywhere and in everything. I have always had a close and abiding relationship with God.” Her faith has sustained and comforted her all of her life and she is at peace.

Clare’s biggest concern is her family. They are pressuring her to fight against death even though she doesn’t want to. She wishes that they would join her in preparing for her death rather than denying the inevitable. “I worry about how they will manage when I’m gone. And even though I’m ready to die, I feel as though I need their permission before I can take my leave.”

We continue our sneak preview of the ten people who will be joining you in the on-the-page support group in The Amateur’s Guide To Death and Dying; Enhancing the End of Life. You’ll have plenty of opportunity to get to know them better once you start the book, but until then, these thumbnail sketches will serve as a handy reference.

Raymond, 50, is a social worker employed by a home health care agency in San Francisco. He is thinking about applying for a position in the agency’s hospice program, but he’s not quite sure he’s ready for the responsibility. “I need to better understand my own feelings about death and dying before I can hope to assist anyone else.” He hopes this group will help him do this. “If I’m going to do this work, I want to do it well.”

Raymond’s mother died of ovarian cancer when he was seven years old, but he never really processed the loss. Now a dear friend of long standing, Joann, is also dying of cancer. Joann’s imminent death has opened the floodgates of his unresolved grief associated with his mother’s death. “I’m both drawn to Joann and repulsed by her all at the same time. And she knows it. It’s so crazy. You should see me. I’m confused and disoriented, which is not at all like me.”

Raymond says that his interest in this group is strictly professional. “I don’t have a life threatening illness myself.” But upon further investigation, Raymond reveals that a recent visit to his doctor disclosed that he is at high risk for heart disease. Raymond is considerably overweight. “I guess I’ve pretty much let myself go to seed. I’ve always been a big guy, big-boned, as my mother would say, but now I’m just Fat with a capital ‘F’”. The heart disease news, while shocking, didn’t come as much of a surprise.

Three years ago Raymond went through a very acrimonious divorce. “My life shattered before my eyes.” His three children, two girls and a boy, live with his ex-wife in another state. He gets to see the kids only on holidays and for a month during the summer. “After the divorce, I just didn’t care if I lived or died. I ballooned. I put on over a hundred pounds in a matter of months. Hey, wait a minute. Maybe that’s why I’m considering this hospice move, and why I’m so ambivalent about Joann, and why I want to do this group. Maybe I need to recover a sense of meaning for my life.”

We continue our sneak preview of the ten people who will be joining you in the on-the-page support group in The Amateur’s Guide To Death and Dying; Enhancing the End of Life. You’ll have plenty of opportunity to get to know them better once you start the book, but until then, these thumbnail sketches will serve as a handy reference.

Holly, 43, is a breast cancer survivor. She has been cancer-free for three years. She’s a graphic artist, shares a home with her partner of ten years, Jean, and their teenage daughter Annie.

Holly is a splendid figure, nearly six feet tall, weighing over 200 pounds. She is as soft-spoken as she is imposing. A beautiful smile radiates from her full face. Oodles of thick jet-black braids spring from her head as from a fountain gone mad. She is forever brushing one or another of them from her face as she speaks. Her frequent laughter is like music, making her whole body dance and shake, but her levity masks a somberness and apprehension that is very troubling to her.

”I often become consumed with worries about getting sick again. My fears can turn into a paralyzing dread that takes days and sometimes weeks to shake. I know that until I can accept the possibility of my own death, I’ll never be able to embrace all the great things that are right in front of me.”

For therapy, she spends hours tending ten different varieties of roses in her immaculate garden. “I lose myself there. The rich earth soothes my troubled soul.”

Her church is a second home for Holly. It always has been. “I was raised in rural Georgia. As a child, my momma took me to this little makeshift church in the woods near the river. It had no heat in the winter, and come summer, why honey, you’d about roast. The Oakland church I attend now has both heat and air conditioning, but child, the singing and preaching still can raise a cold sweat on me.”

We continue our sneak preview of the ten people who will be joining you in the on-the-page support group in The Amateur’s Guide To Death and Dying; Enhancing the End of Life. You’ll have plenty of opportunity to get to know them better once you start the book, but until then, these thumbnail sketches will serve as a handy reference.

Michael, 52, was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis three years ago. Since then, he has been confined to a motorized wheelchair. This past year he has had several MS-related setbacks that have kept him bed-ridden for several weeks at a time. Things have become so difficult that two months ago he was forced to sell his once thriving law practice. The few hours of work he can manage a week at his old firm are more frustrating than fulfilling for him. And Mike is often depressed. He continually repeats his self-defeating mantra: “I’m not half the man I used to be.” The return of his beloved Raiders to Oakland, the super-human support of his second wife, Maryanne, and their son Kyle are the only things that keep him from self-destruction.

An exasperated Maryanne accompanied Mike to his intake interview. She tearfully reported how Mike’s smoldering rage and bouts of sullenness terrorize the family. “I love him, but he’s gotta get off his pity-pot or I’m gonna walk, and take Kyle with me.” Mike sheepishly acknowledges his disruptive behavior. His ruggedly handsome face distorts with shame. “It’s not me. It’s this damn MS. I just can’t seem to get it together. I feel like such a failure.”

Even though he thinks participating in the group is an admission of defeat, he promises his wife that he will give it his best shot. This soothes Maryanne. She hugs him and promises to help in any way she can. “We’re in this together, babe.”