Desiderata
“Desiderata” is an early 1920s prose poem by the American writer Max Ehrmann A dear friend of mine is suffering through her terminal illness and she reminded me of this touching verse. Grounded in psychology,...
Read MoreAuthor: Mary Ann Papageorge
There’s Nothing More That Can Be Done!
Patient’s dread that statement and it simply is NOT true. I had a family from out of state whose father had experienced a prolonged and torturous death from cancer. He ended up going to the hospital looking for a miracle to keep...
Read MoreDeath Then And Now
Increase Mather, one of Puritan New England’s foremost ministers and scholars, died in 1723 at his home in Boston. As he lay “feeble and sore broken” upon his death bed, he faced his life’s end with...
Read MoreCats vs Computers In Predicting Death?
There is a story of a cat, Oscar that was apparently better than most doctors at predicting when a terminally ill patient was about to die. The story appeared, astonishingly, in The New England Journal of Medicine in the summer...
Read MoreIllness as a Companion
We never value or even see some things in our lives until we are just about to lose them. This is particularly true of health. When we are in good health, we are so busy in the world that we never even notice how well we are....
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Talking Death Cards
Talking Death Cards provide you with engaging questions that inspire deep and meaningful conversations among family, friends and colleagues in an easy to use playing card format.