Last summer, when the health care debate was in full swing and members of Congress were being hounded at their town hall meetings, it was often heard that the bill being debated would provide for “death panels” in which groups of experts might decide if someone should be allowed to die. The panels were actually… [Read more…]
June 16, 2010
A couple of times since I’ve been volunteering with hospice, I’ve said to people that they should consider hospice for an ailing loved one. Typically, the response is, “Well, I don’t think we’re there yet.” Doctors, as other volunteers told me just last night, often say the same thing. “We don’t want to give up… [Read more…]
May 10, 2010
Chicago’s Lawndale neighborhood is just five miles southwest of the Loop, the heart of downtown, where despite a bad economy, buildings continue to rise. Glass and steel glitter alongside Lake Michigan’s sparkling blue water. While the city’s skyscrapers are visible from Lawndale, the only things that glitter here are the bits of broken glass that line… [Read more…]
April 27, 2010
A new study finds that having faith in a God that cares helps patients recover from serious depression. Faith, the researchers found, was different than hope. Having hope for the future did not predict better health. In addition, having faith alone did not help patients. Rather faith aided those who were clinically depressed to better… [Read more…]
April 9, 2010
Today, I finally got to reading this article from The New York Times that strongly challenges the ideas presented in The Art of Dying. The challenge comes not from an argument but from a story of someone who decided to use every medical option to fight death until the very end. Dr. Pardi was a… [Read more…]
April 1, 2010
Two new studies show the importance of planning your end of life care. In the first, researchers in Australia followed hundreds of patients who were older than 80 and and had been admitted to the hospital. Almost half had received help with advanced care planning. Business Week reports that “Within six months, 56 of the… [Read more…]
March 29, 2010
I have argued in The Art of Dying for the importance of accepting our limitations at the end of life. That may mean seeking out hospice or other palliative care. Or it may simply mean a mentally coming to terms with the fact that our lives are finite and limited. We make the best of… [Read more…]
March 24, 2010
I met Jennifer through this blog and then through church. It turned out we’d been going to the same church for a few months before meeting here. I didn’t know however, until church prayers a couple weeks ago, that Jennifer had been working through a number of choices related to her breast cancer. Jennifer hasn’t read… [Read more…]
March 23, 2010
I haven’t been a huge fan of the health care bill, and I’ve disliked the process throughout. Still, I’m not terribly engaged–politically speaking. What’s done is done, and there are aspects to this bill that I like. It seems to me that most people will appreciate being able to buy–and have subsidized–their health insurance if… [Read more…]
March 23, 2010
The Washington Post has a nifty tool to explain what the health care bill will mean for your finances and health insurance. The bill is massive and confusing. So, I found the tool helpful to discover that it won’t immediately affect me very much. I have insurance through my employer, but if it gets too… [Read more…]
July 12, 2010
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