Death and Dying in the Magic Kingdom
February 26, 2013 | 
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I just came back from teaching a palliative nursing course at the Disneyland Hotel in California. That might seem an odd juxtaposition but, from a self-care standpoint, it was great.
First, the hotel is consistently, and occasionally relentlessly, cheerful with perky “cast members” greeting you brightly at all hours of the day. Guests walk around wearing Mickey Mouse ears, princess dresses and tiaras, and other aspects of various Disney characters. The weather was gloriously sunny, and warm.
The course was the End-of-Life-Nursing- Education Consortium’s (ELNEC) Summit. This is the concurrent offering of its Core, Critical Care, and Pediatric Train-the-Trainer curricula. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Caregiver, Coping, Education, nursing, Self care, Uncategorized | 
Tags: ELNEC, nursing, palliative care, Self-care | 
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The Conversation Stopper
So there I am, watching my kids playing in the local playground, new to the locale, trying to form my own social network with other parents of young children. It is all very chatty and amicable until the topic of employment comes up…
“And what do you do?”
“I work in palliative care. (Silence) Have you heard of it?”
Read the rest of this entry »
Summer Storms, Summer Myths
Almost 20 years ago, a family member died in August. The funeral ritual was interrupted by thunder, lightening, and pouring rain. We thought of the storm as a declaration of arrival. Perhaps even a celebration. The next year there was a thunder storm on the same day. Family and friends phoned each other to comment on the coincidence and to reminisce. The next year it happened yet again. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Art of healing, Dying, Holistic healing, Psycho-social, Reflective practice, Religion, Ritual, Self care | Comments Closed
“Posttraumatic Growth: A Personal Example” by JPM Columnist Susan Cadell
In the mid-90s, I was experiencing more grief and loss than I could have ever imagined. It was the height of the AIDS epidemic in Canada, and many of my friends were dying. As a young straight woman with numerous gay male friends, I was impacted by HIV/AIDS more than most of the people around me. Read the rest of this entry »
Facing Death
How do you feel about your graying hair and stiff joints? Sometimes I’m asked to visit people with the specific purpose of helping them deal with being flat on their backs. Perhaps it’s the “workaholic” syndrome, and we secretly want the reputation of working too hard. Read the rest of this entry »
That Look
You know what I know.
That look, from patients, that is.
You walk into the room, start to explain who you are, what you do.
“We’re part of the Palliative Care team…”
All at once you watch your patient’s eyes widen, Read the rest of this entry »
What I Do and Why I Do It: A Palliative Perspective
I didn’t go to medical school until I was 49 years old, finally fulfilling a long-held dream that had also come to include being a country doc in Vermont, where we then lived (that I remain in Iowa, teaching residents, doing Palliative Medicine is a tale for another post).
Before that, in my previous career, I had been a writer, penning books on behalf of the likes of Time-Life Books, National Geographic and Reader’s Digest, in addition to writing advertising copy for those companies and many, many others. Read the rest of this entry »
Infinite-Caring Being : by JPM Guest Blogger Virginia Seno, PhD, RN
I’m reminded of the time when my late husband Josh died with a mere 17 days from diagnosis to death. Doctors, nurses, aides and others said and did many harmful things; and I had enormous work to do to get good care. I didn’t need that but that’s what I got. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Art of healing, Caregiver, Family, Humanistic medicine, Reflective practice, Self care, Spirituality | 4 Comments »
What a year….already!
As I come to the end of a very busy week, I can't help but bit relieved not to be on call this weekend. I am very much looking forward to taking care of some things around the house and for myself. Read the rest of this entry »
See You in Paradise
imagine you say goodbye to your spouse as you’re leaving for work in the morning, quick hug and kiss perhaps and you’re out the door. Halfway to the car you realize you’ve forgotten your keys and need to go back inside for just a moment, and you find your spouse still sitting at the kitchen table finishing their coffee. They might smile, wave, or continue reading the paper and you are left feeling that this second goodbye was like overkill, that it is somehow less special or relevant because you invested your feelings the first time. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Patient Centered Care, Reflective practice, Self care | Tags: medical student | Comments Closed
Self-Care to Celebrate
Some things can make the lines, to-die-for sales and sweet treats insignificant and turn the celebrations into questions such as “why is this happening to me?” What if you find out the weekend before Thanksgiving that you have ALS? What if you have metastatic cancer and are going through a toxic treatment regime right now and you don’t know what the future holds? Read the rest of this entry »
Be Still
I would like to share some of the art I created during training as a way of reflection and self care . Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Art of healing, Geriatrics, Humanistic medicine, Reflective practice, Self care | 3 Comments »
The Experience of Loss
These images are from a series of prints completed during the months following the death of my father. He became very ill very quickly. It was a difficult time. The evaluation and treatment did not make sense to me. When I became aware of his illness, I began Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Advocacy, Grief, Humanistic medicine, Reflective practice, Self care, Spirituality | Tags: Grief, loss, spirituality | Comments Closed
“How do you do this?”
We had just spent the better of two hours with a newly diagnosed cancer patient.
A patient young, certainly by the standard of my own 60 years.
She herself still absorbing the news that she, no one, ever hopes to hear. Her husband, at more remove, fathoming, all at once, the unfathomable. The visit itself emotional, more so than any of us in that room might ever have expected.
With me, this visit, one of the Family Medicine residents with whom I work as faculty. She, the entire time, quiet, but attentive, paged once from the room—and long then in returning. Read the rest of this entry »
Slouching Towards Bethlehem (or, Finding Wisdom in the Moment)
You could spend a lifetime straddling stools in bars from the bay side of Isle au Haut to the far side of Tillamook, and every once in a bottle of Blue Moon you might find yourself squinting through rivers of neon and smoke, tucking your beer a bit tighter to hand and leaning into the voice beside you, all at once aware that what you’re hearing might well pass for wisdom, even, and this, a true test of wisdom, the morning after.
More often, of course, all that beer....... Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Humanistic medicine, Reflective practice, Self care | Tags: Humanistic medicine, Reflective practice, Self-care | 3 Comments »
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