Narrative Essay On Terminal Disease

March 15th, 2010, was a completely normal day. As normal as any day is for a twelve year old homeschooler. I was home with my oldest sister Brittany who was twenty at the time and I was just finishing up my homework for the day. After finishing up my math work I went to go watch television in the living room. Brittany was in her room and my parents didn't get home until later because of work. A few hours into my movie, my stomach started to hurt. Since I was twelve I didn't no the differences of pain so I just left it alone for a while. Later in the day my abdomen was aching so much I couldn't even get off the couch. After wailing for Brittany to call Mom I was sent to the emergency room in an ambulance with severe abdomen pain. After several hours in the ER and multiple tests, doctors found nothing. I was sent home and was told to take Tylenol for the pain. Once I got home, it didn't hurt anymore so I thought they were right and that I could just go on with my crazy life as a twelve year old. I was wrong. Two months after, I got the same

The aim of a hospice is to improve the quality of life of the dying

On Death and Dying By Elisabeth Kubler-Ross For my book review, I read On Death and Dying, by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross. Dr. Kubler-Ross was the first person in her field to discuss the topic of death. Before 1969, death was considered a taboo. On Death and Dying is one of the most important psychological studies of the late twentieth century. The work grew out of her famous interdisciplinary seminar on death, life, and transition. In this paper, I give a comprehensive book review as well as integrate topics learned in class with Dr. Kubler-Ross' work. Like Piaget's look at developmental stages in children, there are also stages a person experiences on the journey toward death. These five stages are denial/isolation, anger, bargaining,

With major advancement in medical treatments, it is now possible to keep a patient alive, which would not have been possible in former times. This has made end of life issue one of the most controversial issues in healthcare. Medical improvements have set the stage for ethical and legal controversies about not only the patient’s rights but also the family’s rights and the medical profession’s proper role. It is critical that any decision made in such situation is ethical and legal to preserve the rights of the patient and also protect the healthcare institution involved. It is very important when making decisions to discontinue treatments to make sure all other alternatives have been explored.

This was a typical day for Richard Wolf, who awoke to the sound of sirens that resonated through the windows of his home. Richard got up and run towards the window to shut it, so his three-year-old daughter wouldn't awake. As Richard began to get ready for his day, he sensed that somehow the day would go abysmally wrong. Before Richard went about his day, he came close his bed, gently shook his wife's back and whispered in her ear,

I, my friend Pierre, and his dad were travelling to a cemetery of a small town near Forbach, France. It was late afternoon and Pierre’s dad wanted to show me a plague grave. When we reached a small ancient looking church we got out to look around. They brought me to a large structure with iron bars for walls and meticulously carved stone framing the ceiling and floor. Inside were 390-450 skulls, and a corresponding amount of other skeletal remains. They were piled in a substantial heap; out in the open, exposed to the elements. After inspecting some of the other graves, we hopped in the car and left.

As many beautiful memories are waiting for me there I cannot get over the single most horrible experience of my entire life. I can see the man running at us, hand glued to the pocket of his black hoodie. I should have stepped in front of you when I got that weird feeling. The shining blade of the knife that pierced your delicate skin etched never healing slashes into my brain. I can feel the warm blood escaping you as I hold your shivering body in my arms. The flow of tears streaming down my face landed in the crook of your neck as I buried my head in your shoulder. I can feel the weak grasp of your hand pulling me away to look you in the eyes. Oh, those beautiful eyes. I stared into those pools of blue as you said “I love you” for the final time, afterwards closing them to slip into your eternal sleep. Sobs wracked through my body as the paramedics pulled me off of you, but they were too late. Their apologies and condolences are ignored as I stared into the sky hoping that I’ll find one of those shooting stars that you always talked about and make a wish to get you back. I was never good at finding

Discussion Previous studies suggested that the ED is highly utilized by patients with terminal cancer in Saudi Arabia.12,13 This mandated research to identify the pattern and causes of EDVs by patients with terminal cancer in our setting. The current study is probably the first from our region to address this issue. Themajority (77%) of patients with terminal cancer who died at the KAMC-HC visited the ED at least once during the last 3 months of life.

The case study based on the palliative patient Mrs. Mavis looks at issues both the family and the patient are dealing with in regards to the end of life treatment Mrs. Mavis is receiving. Mrs. Mavis is a palliative patient, currently unconscious, who is dying and only wants comfort measures within her nursing care. This was made clear through her advanced care directive, which was made weeks before beginning to receive her end of life care. Mrs. Mavis’ comfort measures include pain relief, hygiene and keeping her comfortable. Mrs. Mavis’ family want her to have fluids and medications to help improve her health. They also want oxygen and pain relief to help with her breathing. Issues such as educating and supporting the family, pain management, the effectiveness of having an advanced care directive and pain assessment will be evaluated to determine the best effective interventions for Mrs. Mavis and her families care. Interventions that will be discussed through-out this essay include the use of analgesia medication, the use of subcutaneous injections and syringe drivers, emotional support for the family, effective communication, educating the family on Mrs. Mavis’ wishes and the importance of having an advanced care directive. These interventions will be evaluated to ensure they are the best practice for Mrs. Mavis’ care.

During the 2016-2017 academic year, I will continue to work as a waitress at Biwako Sushi and volunteer at the University of Michigan Hospital.

Care team members need to be aware of this tendency to overestimate survival, to reduce residents’ and families’ potential distress.

I sharply inhaled as I heard the muffled sound of footsteps, tuning them out to return to my slumber. However, the footsteps continued to pitter patter outside my door. Groggily, I got up and opened my bedroom door expecting to see my brother messing around in the hallway. What I did not expect was to see a team of Emergency Medical Technician’s struggling to get my father onto a stretcher down the stairs. It was the summer before my senior year of high school and my siblings usually stayed up late binging the latest addictive series on Netflix. But tonight was radically different from other late nights. Now at this moment I was paralyzed with fear and had no idea that the events that would unfold next would test my endurance in the most strenuous way.

It’s occasionally said that human beings are the only creatures who are aware of their own death, but is this actually true? The term death is often used lightly and has been made into something of an unimportant subject. Fact of the matter is that many of us don’t want to think about death, we live in a death denying culture. Few individuals truly grasp the concept of death and how it can distort the lives of the people it comes in contact with. I was among the naïve until right before my senior year of High School. I lived a life where I wasn’t worried about the future let alone death; I was worried about the present and

When we experience pain, our brain is actually telling us that we are feeling pain. There are sensory receptors on our skin that is responsible for sending signals to nerve fibers which is then accounted for transmitting messages to the spinal cord and onto the brainstem where it finally distributes to various parts of the brain where the sensation is registered as pain. To briefly put it, pain is a sensorial-cerebral event. This is usually why sometimes we have a delayed reaction to a cut or a burn and also why we can take medication to alleviate pain. Though suffering and pain are nearly synonymous, suffering is actually the psychological response to the feeling of pain. As such, one’s definition of suffering vary from one another and while pain can usually be treated, suffering cannot be mitigated by medication.

The uproar of violent knocks on my front door and my front door unlocking permeated through the quiet studio apartment. My brain told me to run and hide, but my body stood rooted to the ground. I was frozen...except the one heavy warm tear trickling down what seemed like my lifeless face.