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The Art Of Dying :  An Anthology
compiled by Henry
(For a little humour, scroll to bottom of page)

Dedication:

This anthology is dedicated to my friends of the Association Caring Together, who are bringing the best of practice from all over the world as they develop, slowly but surely, the Hospice concept in Spain.

The object of compiling it is to advance the view that dying should be regarded as an honourable and dignified phase of life, and so to increase the demand for the special services that can make it so.

Top Quote:

The care of the dying patient is one of the most important jobs in medicine, and the late, great Dame Cicely Saunders was one of the giants of 20th Century medicine.

“You matter to the last moment of your life, and we will do all we can, not only to help you die peacefully, but to live until you die.”
(Dame Cicely Saunders)

(Find more at nhsblog.blogspot.com)

Retired diplomat Russell Thomson contributed this diplomatic overview

Not that long ago, the pain of childbirth was thought to be a totally acceptable side-effect (of what, I will not say!). It took Queen Victoria’s acceptance of ‘gas’ to show that there was no need for women to suffer (and that nitrous oxide did no harm to the child). And I recall reading recently about some idiot claiming that the doctor who eased the passing of KGV was a murderer (and that the timing was set to allow the Times an hour or so to dust off its obituary boilerplate…).

It seems very odd to me that people who show compassion for the suffering of animals, and move to end that suffering, do not have the same compassion for the suffering of their fellow human beings, and refuse to allow steps to be taken to ease that pain.

When I had my hip ‘fixed’ I had a remote control which was supposed to regulate the flow of a painkiller in to my saline drip. Unfortunately the rechargeable batteries in it were flat, and neither I, nor the gorgeously exotic nurses in attendance, noticed. Either the wonders of the placebo effect, or a triumph of unrequited lust.

Seriously though, I think people who have need of extreme measures of pain control should, literally, have, as I had, the answer in their own hands, and get the relief needed as they themselves judge they need it.

If I ever get to that stage, I’m going to make damned sure that the batteries are brand new Duracells. RT 2006.

Living the end of life - are we prepared?

Looking at a typical life-span as we move further into the new millenium, we spend a significant proportion of our wealth on pre-natal and post-natal care, on education, on health and on residential care of the elderly. But when you are dying, what tried and tested medical advances are available to smooth your path, keep pain and bay and make what remains of life more pleasant ? Even if you have the means to afford them, is your doctor willing to use them? Or is a certain amount of suffering thought to be good for you as a prelude to your extinction, or your passage to wherever else your faith is taking you?

The idea of attempting this enquiry and collecting these anecdotes arose when I discovered that, if time was kind to the rest of my family, the next to die is likely to be me! This intimation of mortality resulted from the death of the only daughter of a great-uncle, leaving me as the next Lock with a clear ticket for the pearly gates.

I did not see Marjorie, for that was her name, in the ten years before she died. But she wrote of the pain of her ulcerated legs a good many years before her death. Somehow, not having been closely involved with her “case” makes it easier to write about the shock of a last photograph sent by her nephew. The years of pain in those well-remembered eyes angered me. Eyes made for twinkling and loving, how had they been allowed to become haunted with pain? How unnecessary. What a waste of her last days!

Preoccupied with loss, it dawned on me that I once knew a lot about birth and genetic engineering and aircraft recognition and driving motor cars. But, in a century when more people must have died than in any previous one, I knew damn-all about dying and still less about taking the sting out of death, which my friends of Caring Together assure me is possible.

Indeed Socrates would appear to have had an easy enough time of it, surrounded as he was by friends who were sure he was doing the right thing. But you will not find here arguments for sentences of death, which I regard as ritualised murder, nor for euthanasia which few of the cultures from which this book springs are ready to accept.

Regard this work, rather, as an affirmation that life is good - and that we already have at our disposal tried and tested ways of helping those who love life make the very most of their last days. With this help it is often possible for us to remain nearly free of pain and appreciating being alive until the last conscious breath.

Because there will be no attempt on my part to be authoritative I hope no one will want to kill me for the mix that follows, much of which is drawn from sources that pretend to authority! The intention is to create a text that is both informative and enjoyable - and to keep the reader thinking positively. It is inevitable, in treating a subject that is older than the art of writing, that I shall plagiarise without knowing it. Sources will be traced & acknowledged wherever possible for breaching copyright worries me.

In an epoch in which so many of us are rushed to death, stop and consider this: there’ll never be a knack to dying, because to acquire a knack one needs to practise, but nevertheless there may be an art to it - and with a little forethought and the unobtrusive help of friends within the hospice movement, many of us may make an art of it at the first attempt.

So that those who know us best will not need to draw a veil over our departure.

© Asociación Caring Together, 2005. Developing the hospice concept in spain.

How we saw things in year 2000…

Spreading from the United States and Northern Europe there is the strong feeling that sufficient resources should be dedicated to those in this phase of life to ensure that it is, as far as possible, a time of tranquility, of freedom from pain, of mental clarity, and of not feeling alone in the face of the frightening new experience of coming to the end of life.

We are greatly heartened, therefore, to find that similar thoughts have emerged from the Council of Europe which, while rejecting calls for euthanasia, has called on member governments to provide the necessary legal & social protection to ensure that patients are not exposed to unbearable symptoms and has recommended that specialised palliative care units should be established in larger hospitals and that ambulant hospice teams should be created to provide similar care at home. The Council of Europe also urged the medical profession to provide adequate pain relief for terminally ill patients - even if as a side effect the treatment may shorten the individual’s life - but not to treat them against their will.
(Source: Rory Watson, from Brussels, in Newsletter No 4 of FRIENDS OF THE HOSPICES, Mallorca, pp 12-14, January 2000.)

Those are our sentiments exactly. This helps to explain why we have ceased to concentrate exclusively on Building Programmes and have added to our priorities the training of key personnel (consultants, doctors, nurses & auxiliaries who want to specialise in palliative care) and the strengthening of our capacity to assist in patient’s own homes whenever existing services are inadequate or cannot be afforded. These are the broad fronts on which we believe we should now be moving forward.

The various items in this anthology will drop in one by one as time permits. Contributions are invited in the language of your choice. Ideally, they should be self-contained and designed to enlighten, not frighten, our readers.

You can’t avoid it…..

Dying is unlikely to be a pleasant experience for most of us and few of those dying in the early years of C21 will have an easy death.

See for example a best selling American book, first published 1990 :-

“How We Die: Reflexions on Life’s Final Chapter.”
by Sherwin B Nuland (Yale Newhaven’s principal surgeon in those days).

You’ll find new and s/h copies at Amazon.com from about $7, with audio cassettes from about $17. There is also a readily-available translation into Spanish : “Como Morimos”

CARING TOGETHER’s aim is to address the anguish, the agony and the sheer indignity of dying which Nuland describes so vividly. We are here to make death as comfortable as possible within the limits set by the laws of Spain.

One of the things to be done is to bring death out from behind closed doors, where the living have pushed it on their trolleys - for their own convenience. Most people, we think, would rather not be reminded that dying may be harder and more protracted than giving birth and perhaps without quite the same pleasures to look forward to.

“Our” culture has institutionalised death and left it to the experts to “fight” it. What we should be doing is recognising death as a natural phase of life and establishing the best possible conditions for patients as the time draws near.

It can take anything from a few seconds to several years to die, and within that range there would be ample opportunity for those about to be left behind to make things easier, if only the general climate of opinion were on their side.

We hope to change that climate of opinion and summarise our attempt by saying we are “PROMOTING THE HOSPICE MOVEMENT IN SPAIN.”

This requires that we attend to the requests of those who turn to us for immediate care ; that we find the money to pay on behalf of those who are genuinely unable to afford appropriate care, AND that we squirrel away as much as possible to help to build the special care units (”Hospices”) that we believe are desirable.

Memorable quote

“We must all die. But that I can save him
from days of torture, that is what I feel as
my great and ever new privilege. Pain is a
more terrible lord of mankind than even
death itself.”

Albert Schweitzer, 1931.

The moment of death.

“Have you ever been with someone at the moment of their death?” It was a friend asking.

“No,” I said.

“It’s a privilege”, he said. “I really mean it.”

Well, he’d spent enough years in charge of Residences for the Elderly and I shall have to take his word for it.

Quote

To talk of the future is only worthwhile if we act today.
E.F.Schumacher: “Small is beautiful”.

Email from supporter in Torrevieja, Spain.

“I suppose when you are dealing with a subject as massive as yours words are less important – what matters is that you carry on doing your GREAT work”

Fabulous BBC book based on Esther Rantzen prog.

“How to have a good death” to search for this on http://www.bbc.co.uk or Amazon, Google, etc.

Quote from Bella, bereavement counsellor:

Remember to be gentle with yourself. Grief works
on its own schedule.

Acknowledgments to www.bellaonline.com

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The real trick .

The real trick is to go gentle into that good night.

? Dylan Thomas  ?

The first chapter of WILD HORSES (by Dick Francis)  includes a well written description of the final illness of an old man.  We are seeking permission from the copyright owners to publish some of it on this website.

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    ***   and now for something lighter……..

           ****

                    *****

You’ve got this far? Then please smile with us, too…!

“I’m very pleased to be here. Let’s face it, at my age I’m very pleased to be anywhere.”
-George Burns

Humorous cameos of the human condition. From Canada. Thanks, Chuck!

Some old, some new, some clever. I like the two old guys looking for their wives in Wal-mart

Senior Wisdom:

A distraught senior citizen phoned her doctor’s office.
“Is it true,” she wanted to know,
“that the medication you prescribed has
to be taken for the rest of my life?”

“Yes, I’m afraid so,” the doctor told her.

There was a moment of silence before the senior lady replied,

“I’m wondering, then, just how serious is my condition
because this prescription is marked ‘NO REFILLS.’

—————————————–

An older gentleman was on the operating table
awaiting surgery and he insisted that his son,
a renowned surgeon, perform the operation.

As he was about to get the anesthesia
he asked to speak to his son.

“Yes, Dad, what is it?”

“Don ‘t be nervous, son;
do your best and just remember, if it doesn’t go well,
if something happens to me, your mother is going to come
and live with you and your wife….”

—————————————–

Aging: Eventually you will reach a point when you
stop lying about your age and start bragging about it.

—————————- — ———–

The older we get, the fewer things seem
worth waiting in line for.

——————————————

Some people try to turn back their odometers.
Not me, I want people to know “why” I look this way.
I’ve traveled a long way and some of the
roads weren’t paved.

——————————————–

When you are dissatisfied and would
like to go back to youth,
think of Algebra.

———————————————

You know you are getting old when everything
either dries up or leaks.

———————————————-

I don’t know how I got over the hill
without getting to the top.

———————————————-

One of the many things no one tells you about aging
is that it is such a nice change from being young.

———————————————-

Ah, being young is beautiful,
but being old is comfortable.

———————————————–

First you forget names, then you forget faces.
Then you forget to pull up your zipper.
It’s worse when you forget to pull it down.

——————————————-

Long ago when men cursed and beat the ground
with sticks , it was called witchcraft.
Today, it’s called golf.

——————————————-

Two old guys are pushing their carts around Wal-Mart when they collide. The first old guy says to the
second guy, “Sorry about that. I’m looking for my
wife, and I guess I wasn’t paying attention to where I
was going.”
The second old guy says, “That’s OK, It’s a
coincidence. I’m looking for my wife, too. I can’t
find her and I’m getting a little desperate.”
The first old guy says, “Well, maybe I can help you
find her. What does she look like?”
The second old guy says: “Well, she is 27 yrs old! ,
tall, w ith red hair, blue eyes, long legs, and is wearing short shorts. What does you wife look like?”
To which the first old guy says, “Doesn’t matter,
— let’s look for yours.”

Lord,

Keep your arm around my shoulder and your hand over my mouth…AMEN..!!

and finally……

“Dying is a very dull, dreary affair. And my advice to you is to have nothing whatever to do with it.”
- W. Somerset Maugham

Have you an item you’d like to contribute ?

An account, perhaps, of the last weeks of a person you loved ?

Just send it to info@caringspain.com thanks !