Elaine was a vibrant wife, mother of six, and grandmother. She was extremely health conscious going in on a yearly basis for her regular mammogram when unexpectedly she was told she had a cyst in her breast. Thinking nothing of it, Elaine scheduled to have the cyst removed on the advice of her doctor as a precautionary measure. This was the beginning of a very unfortunate turn of events for Elaine and her family. As it turned out, this “simple cyst” was actually breast cancer. Elaine was taken in for exploratory surgery to see how far the cancer had spread. The diagnosis was not good. Besides affecting the breast, the cancer had made its way to the lymph nodes under her arms. John Farndon notes, “the lymphatic system plays an important role in the body with fighting infection. The lymphatic system is the body’s sewer system, the network of pipes that drains waste from the cells.” The lymph nodes are filters along the lymphatic system that contain white blood cells called lymphocytes and their job is to neutralize or destroy bacteria, viruses, and cancer cells. (Farndon) Elaine’s breasts had to be removed, after surgery followed by recovery Elaine began her journey and fight against breast cancer (Wilmes 112).
For the next year Elaine endured chemotherapy treatments and the side effects that came along with it. Losing her hair, the nausea and vomiting. Feeling like some days she just couldn’t get out of bed, she could just lay there forever. After a year, Elaine was given a clean bill of health and was declared cancer free. Shortly after being cleared of cancer Elaine resumed living her life, she even joined the Red Hat Society, began going on cruises with her husband. Sadly soon after, she began to feel weak again. She made a vi...
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...dicine 357; 4 (2007): 321- 324. Print.
Hannon, Kerry. “A Spreading Appreciation For The Benefits Of Hospice Care.” U.S. News & World Report 145.13 (2008): 77-80. Academic Search Complete. Web. 10 Nov. 2013.
Henig, Robin. “Will We Ever Arrive at the Good Death?” nytimes.com. The New York Times,
7 Aug. 2005. Web. 24 Oct. 2013.
Meekhof, Kristin. HUFFPOST HEALTHY LIVING. Hospice Voices, 2013. Web. 24 Oct. 2013
National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization. National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization. NHPCO, 2012. Web. 24 Oct. 2013.
National Hospice Foundation. National Hospice Foundation. NHF, 2013. Web. 24 Oct. 2013.
Nordqvist, Christian. “End-Of-Life Care For Elderly Often Too Aggressive.” Medicalnewstoday.com. Medical News Today, 6 Feb. 2013, Web. 24 Oct. 2013.
Wilmes, D.M. Seven Days of Hospice: A Memoir. Lincoln. iUniverse. 2007. Print.
Eleven days after the transplant, Rebecca is released from the hospital, and she is excited to be returning home. Four days after Rebecca returns home, she calls to check on her friend Graham and she is upset when she finds out he has passed away. Rebecca returns to Dr. Vose for a checkup and he delivers good news. One year after treatment, Rebecca's lymph node is back to its normal size(Perl,1995).
The patient (who now has a name, Sylvia) made an attempt to end her suffering by sticking her head in an oven, while her boyfriend tried to stop her and would take her yelling and struggling (which makes him feels isolated) over her attempted suicide. Sylvia continues to feel pain from not only her bone cancer, but from her emotionally abused past and present as told in the seventh track, “Two”,
God tells his children, “He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away” (Revelation). Death is one of the most frightening and confusing times a person can go through. Watching a loved one pass away is also one of the hardest trials a person can experience. Many people assume that death is a time of pain and the only thing that they can do is mourn and watch their loved one fade away from the earth. This is wrong. There are ways that people can turn a bad situation to good. Dying doesn’t have to be painful and full of suffering. The County Hospice staff makes sure of this. The Hospice staff not only takes care of passing patients physically, but they also take care of the patients emotionally and spiritually. Hospice staff also plays a key role in helping families during the grieving process.
Dworkin, Gerald. " The Nature of Medicine." Euthanasia and Physician Assisted Suicide: For and Against. 1st ed. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1998.
Gawande’s book is very pertinent to the present day and has by many accounts sparked a national discussion on end-of-life care and how we treat our elderly. With elderly people accounting for a greater proportion of the American populace and as people start living even longer than they do now, end-of-life care will become and remain a major issue faced by doctors, patients, their families, and the healthcare system. Additionally, with our greater focus on improving patient outcomes while getting the most value for our healthcare dollars, end-of-life care is a major area that healthcare systems and hospitals will focus on, as it accounts for a large portion of their budget. As a response to the need to take care of our aging population, hospice care and palliative medicine are some of the newer specialties in the medical field that have been increasing in popularity and more research needs to be focused in these areas to better understand how to improve patient outcomes.
End-of-life care in the United States is often fraught with difficult decisions and borne with great expense. Americans are often uncomfortable discussing death and
(3)Publication Date: 2008-03-18Medicare Benefit Policy Manual Chapter 9 - Coverage of Hospice (4) JOURNAL OF PALLIATIVE MEDICINE
Smith, Wesley J. "Assisted Suicide Will Not Remain Restricted to the Terminally Ill." Assisted Suicide. Ed. Sylvia Engdahl. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2009. Current Controversies. Rpt. from "Death on Demand: The Assisted-Suicide Movement Sheds Its Fig Leaf." Weekly Standard (5 July 2007). Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 9 Feb. 2014.
Hunt, Roger. "A Bedside Perspective of Euthanasia." The Voluntary Euthanasia Society. November 1996. Online. Internet. 28 April 1999.
She’s been struggling everyday of her life for the past 10 years; battling and fighting this horrible disease has made it hard on her and her family. The cancer has now metastasized, making it difficult for her to take care of everyday responsibilities and participate in daily activities. Her 13-year-old daughter is watching as her mother suffers and becomes brittle and weak.
Hospice care can be provided in a variety of settings – in a hospital, in a facility devoted to
A good death could be viewed as the natural path of faith commitments made in one’s early life. Robert Kastenbaum stated, “Individuals should be spared extreme mental, spiritual, and physical suffering at the end of their lives” (DeSpelder & Strickland, 2011, p. 573). Poets, professors, priests, and plain folks all speak out about what makes a good death
An important topic is being discussed and it concerns hospice care. Hospice care is patient/family centered program which provides compassionate, professional, state-of-the-art physical, emotional, and spiritual care and support for people facing life-limiting illnesses. Indeed, there are many opinions about hospice care. However, by most measures of benefit and cost, hospice has been a successful experiment in end-of life care (Lessons from the Hospice Benefit, 2017, Pg. 58). As a result, I believe that hospice care is very beneficial to society.
Hebert, K., Moore, H., & Rooney, J. (2011). The Nurse Advocate in End-of-Life Care. The Ochsner Journal, 11(4), 325–329.