Dear Judy,
My friend was a dynamic 86-year-old who had all the tools in place for a peaceful end. He had a health care proxy, a Living Will and a loving family who supported his wish for just palliative care. In other words: he wanted no life-prolonging measures after cancer invaded his bones.
He was so [...]
Dear Judy,
My handsome, brilliant 46-year-old brother is dying. He knows it. We all know it. Even my sister-in-law, who isn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer, knows it. The problem is, she won’t admit it to herself, and she won’t do any of the things she needs to do right now to prepare herself for the [...]
Dear Judy,
At the risk of sounding completely selfish, I can’t stand it any more. Everyone around me seems to be dying, and I just don’t want to deal with it (or them) any more.
In case you think I’m exaggerating or just crazy, it’s pretty much literally true: my mother-in-law who has Alzheimers has just months to [...]
One of my favorite coffin-buying stories was told to me by the television chef Nigella Lawson about her own mother. Year ago at age 49, Vanessa Lawson was diagnosed with liver cancer and given just weeks to live.
Nigella, 25 at the time of her mother’s diagnosis, got the diagnosis from her mother’s physician. That is [...]
Dear Judy,
My husband and I informed our friends that I’m dying (I have about three months left, best guess). We asked them not to call or visit, as both my time and energy are limited, and whatever I have to spare should go to my family, especially our two kids.
Despite our pleas, more and more [...]
Dear Judy,
While traveling through India, my New Jersey-born mom fell in love with my father who is from Delhi, and married him. Hence — me and my younger brother.
Her family did not approve, and Mom being the squishy Twinkie that she is, visited her parents once a year or so to keep the peace, but [...]
Question: Dear Judy,
I have a cousin who has pancreatic cancer which has now spread to the liver. Everyone in the family knows that he is dying except him. He is determined to fight this literally to the end, which is driving the rest of us crazy.
I wonder, when one finds a helpful site, such as [...]
Many years ago — I think I was around 25 and, if we disregard my idiotic Marlboro pack-a-day smoking habit, very healthy — my mother shocked me with a single question:
“How do you want to be buried?”
I remember looking at her, slack-jawed. In the first place, I thought this hardly the question for [...]
Dear Judy,
Although happily married for many years, I feel, as the end of my life approaches, I would like to reach out to my first wife and the other women in my life who mattered to me. This is upsetting my current wife (my second). Isn’t she being selfish?
Terminal in Ohio
Dear Terminal,
You mean all these [...]
”Why is Medicare considering lowering the reimbursement rates for hospice care?” a reader just wrote in yesterday. “I realize that hospice is the fastest growing segment of the Medicare program, but the number of dying Americans is not going down.“
That is correct. People in the United States are still dying – roughly at the [...]
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Posted on January 24th, 2009