Helen was a renowned lecturer on Whitman, Dickinson, and Frost, and the youngest professor of American poetry to be tenured at her university. But by the time I met her, she was no longer the assured professor who delivered inspiring performances to her students. When I admitted her to the hospital, she was a 56-year-old female with aggressive glioblastoma multiforme, an incurable tumorous cranial interloper that was literally squeezing her mind from within her own skull.
She could no longer recite poetry, but along with her husband Charles (both names have been changed), she was able to answer questions about her symptoms and medical care. She was being admitted with nausea and severe headaches from the cancer crushing her brain. It had been nine months since her diagnosis, and even though the end was near, until me not a single doctor had asked her about her wishes for medical care at the end of life.
Comments
I recently did a blog post and free report called "Death-by-ICU" on this subject at http://ourhealthcaresucks.com/health-care/end-of-life-care-in-america/ and just amended them to add your resources. Thanks for taking the initiative on this crucial subject. Now, how do we get more than a fraction of a per cent of US hospitals to offer this to their patients? Family members need to understand that their good intentions are often counter-productive. Once they understand they may have it backwards, we might start to see the kind of sea change needed in how we approach end-of-life care.