Should a Physician Tell a Patient He/She Only Has So Long to Live?

I was thinking about my neighbors, whose doctor told the wife she had but six weeks left to live. On the one hand, I can understand the need to make sure that the patient has time to gather family members, or that they are in some way notified of the impending event, and also that the patient has time to get his/her affairs in order.

But reflecting back on my research the other day on how many people were in hospice, I remembered how in 2008, some 800,000 were in hospice, and of those, some 200,000 plus were still hanging in at the end of 2008, and some 200,000 plus more made it beyond that.  So what does that tell us?  I think that it would be ok to tell the person that they might not get better, but not to give it a time line. Let them live on as long as they do with some sense of hope. Everyone deserves to die still believing that they will live to see another day unless they are ready to go, and then that is something else. But it should be our choosing or our time, not that said to us by someone who gives us but a few minutes or possibly half an hour or so, while we live in our bodies 24/7.
This little quilt, "What Would Water Do?" was based on a poem that I had permission to reprint. In fact that lady now has the quilt which was made by me. Somehow it seemed to want to join this article.

What If There isn't Any More?

A man in the mobile home where I live told a friend and me the other day that his wife just went to the hospital and is back home in hospice and they gave her six more weeks to live.

This affected me greatly, not just because they are friends of mine, but because many of us seniors live all alone.  It is interesting that we come into this world all alone, and when we die, we have to go alone too, though we might be lucky to be surrounded by loved ones. I know that won't likely be the case for me. My brother lives in another state and is 100% disabled. He does get around some, but travel for him is not likely a good option. And I don't think he could handle it since he suffers, among other things, from post traumatic stress syndrome from the Vietnam War. I made this little quilt to let my brother know I love him.  I am not sure he got the idea, but I think he will someday.

So when a friend sent this to me, I had to share it because it is so true. Many times we take our lives for granted, and those of folks we love around us. We might be angry at them, or we might not have been in contact for a long time.

One day a woman's husband died, and on that clear, cold morning, in the warmth of their bedroom, the wife was struck with the pain of learning that sometimes there isn't "anymore".

No more hugs, no more special moments to celebrate together, no more phone calls just to chat, no more "just one minute."

Sometimes, what we care about the most gets all used up and goes away, never to return before we can say “good-bye”, say "I love you."

So while we have it, it's best we love it, care for it, fix it when it's broken and heal it when it's sick.

This is true for marriage.....And old cars... And children with bad report cards, and dogs with bad hips, and aging parents and grandparents. We keep them because they are worth it, because we are worth it.

Some things we keep -- like a best friend who moved away or a sister-in-law after divorce. There are just some things that make us happy, no matter what.

Life is important, like people we know who are special.. And so, we keep them close!

Suppose one morning you never wake up, do all your friends know you love them?

Let every one of your friends know you love them. Even if you think they don't love you back.

Live today because tomorrow is not promised.

Orphan Plates

I have a bunch of orphan plates I have always loved. Most people would have thrown them out, but for me, they are tiny everyday works of art and I treasure them.

I think some of the seniors are like those orphan plates, for they might be struggling to make it on their own, and many of the relatives might have "discarded them," or assigned them a lower priority in their lives as their care became more demanding.

I see each and every human being no matter how old they are or how infirm, as someone special who still has gifts to offer the world. There is a fiber artist whose art I have always loved, Deidre Scherer, who worked with hospice patients and other elders in their final year, months or days of their lives. She created the most beautiful, loving and compassionate fabric portraits of each of them. Although I cannot put them up here because of copyright issues, I will point you to her web site, http://www.dscherer.com/, where you can see her work. I hope you will appreciate the beauty and treasure these elders as I do.

There are 1.8 million seniors living in nursing homes today throughout the United States. The nursing home numbers do not include assisted-living facilities. There is currently no federal definition of assisted living, so there is a void in the data.

In 2008, there were some 1.45 million receiving hospice services. Of those, some 963,000 died, and 276,000 remained on the hospital census at the end of 2008 (these are known as carryovers). And still another 212,000 were released from hospice in 2008 (these are known as live releases) and for a variety of reasons.

And I often wonder about those who are left behind when a senior passes on. Sometimes a spouse is left or a grown child, and again, the relatives might feel uncomfortable continuing a loving and welcoming relationship with the survivor. And I think if the person or persons left behind have any physical/developmental challenges, the situation may be intensified.

Someone I know if facing such a situation right now, and some of you might also know people who are facing similar situations. I hope that each of us can get over that uncomfortable feeling and help the person to make that transition and find his or her way back to a productive and peaceful life. I know there are grief support groups and other forms of assistance, but the person or persons remaining might not always get connected up with them for whatever reasons, so it is important for us to reach out to them and help them find their way.

On the Senior Experience

Tonight in a women's evolutionary consciousness group, the theme of our sharing was Death. Sounds pretty gruesome, but it wasn't any of that.  Most of what we shared was about transitioning from our younger selves to the winter years of our lives. For some of us, there was a sense of mourning the loss, or a sort of death as it were. For others, the transition came in the form of reinventing ourselves in such a way that we accept the changes taking place with dignity and grace, and that we find a new and meaningful role for the people we have become.

I have often thought that when we get to be seniors, we have learned a lot of life lessons - some wonderful, some good, some bad, and some tragic, but we have learned a lot of things through our lives. The benefit in this is that it enables us to have compassion for others, to understand how to best offer advice that can help others, and it helps us, or should help us to know that we can manage our own lives.

I wish it were always that simple.  But sometimes things happen that make it difficult for us to manage our own lives. We get ill, or we fall on other hard times. And that is when we need every resource we can get to help us to get through it. Unfortunately, there are a lot of seniors right now who don't know their options, and so there is resulting homelessness, people having stress and concerns they shouldn't have, and people doing without things they need - basic things like food, medicine or medical care. I work with physically and developmentally challenged folks, and I see way too much of this.

I'm just one person, but I am a senior too, and I have decided that if there is anything I can do to help others like me and to also try to make some small change in this world while I am still able, that is just what I am going to do. I don't always have much myself, but I have a lot of skills, and one of them is being a good researcher and a decent writer. So I am going to try to provide resources and answer questions and try to help seniors in any way that I can. The way I see it, if people don't start helping each other, we will all be struggling to stay afloat.