… for the person suffering it, but the hardest thing is not being able to experience sickness in a truly human way. Enzo: The Adventure of a FriendshipEnzo: The Adventure of a Friendship. Emilio Bonicelli. p. 50
sickness is an excruciating event … Read More »
When we listen to stories of terrible pain and we know we can’t do anything about it, we touch our own vulnerability. We have heard the scream of pain, but we don’t know what to do with it. None of us knows what to do with the deep brokenness of our world. Maybe that realization
facing pain together … Read More »
Adele V. (not her real name), mid-60s, morbidly obese, heart disease, diabetes, dependent edema that became painful by late afternoon … Adele’s husband, slim and well dressed, strides through the front door. He nods at his wife, then me, and sits without a word in the corner … What the room tells me, what her
everyone has a story … Read More »
“Judgments of others are alienated expressions of our own unmet needs.” Marshall Rosenberg in Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life … discussed at pp. 52-61 a related post
identifying unmet needs … Read More »
“In the past few decades, there has been an increase in the use of life review techniques to improve mood, cognition, and quality of life among elderly individuals. The underlying theory is that late life depression is often caused (or at least worsened) by an inability to remember the trajectory of one’s life. By reliving
The meaning of living in companionship, following our hearts’ deepest desires and receiving what is given was revealed to us through our friendship with Fr. Joe in Rochester. Upon our return from Rimini 2011, my husband Mark and I visited Father Joe in a nursing home. Father Joe was diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis in
we are constantly made by another … Read More »
Adriaen Brouwer’s Bitter Medicine … “But medicine has a bitter taste in his own arena, which no technological progress can sweeten. In its fight against evil and death, medicine can win a battle but lose the war. The disease that seems to be beaten, rises embodied in new, more powerful figures, like an evil alien
Sometimes there are more radical, violent wounds. Death seems close. When we are hurt, we tend to close in on ourselves. It is winter. The ground becomes hard. And sometimes winter lasts a long time. Jean Vanier, Seeing Beyond DepressionSeeing Beyond Depression, p. 43
winter is a season … Read More »
“When I look at a patient, in this case a dying patient, I really look at the primary core spiritual need that they are presenting to me. Is it a quest for meaning to try to determine what their life meant or what their faith means? Or, are they presenting a need for affirmation, support,
Spiritual Issues in the Care of Dying Patients … Read More »
principles … Standard of Care … Know your medical facts – diagnosis – prognosis – treatment. Get second opinion … go to the literature. Substituted judgment … “If for whatever reason you are unable to make your own medical decisions … Who should make them for you?”. Put yourself in the patient’s place –
decision making … principles & process … Read More »
