Dying Well: Our Journey of Love and Loss
Author: Susan Ducharme Hoben
Publisher: Canton Press
Publication Date: March 18, 2018
Length: 290 Pages
About the Author
Susan Ducharme Hoben feels passionately that we Americans do not die well, taking a terrible toll on us, emotionally and financially. She hopes that her experience with an uplifting end-of-life journey can contribute a valuable perspective to the growing interest in exploring how we die.
An Uplifting End-Of-Life Journey
Susan Hoben was a breast cancer survivor.
In 2008. Bruce Hoben was diagnosed with a tumor where the esophagus joins the stomach. Bruce was 67-years-old and appeared to be in excellent physical condition.
Bruce was diagnosed with a neuroendocrine tumor. There was also significant disease in the lymph nodes and four nodules on the liver. Bruce had stage 4 cancer and the prognosis was not good.
Bruce received chemotherapy treatments and experienced a brief remission. When the cancer came back, the Hobens decided to refuse any further treatments and let the disease run it's course. This is their story.
My Thoughts
This book was written in the form of a personal diary or journal.
Mrs. Hoben wrote about her husband's final months with love, compassion and empathy. This book is truly a celebration of life.
Bruce Hoben spent his final weeks saying goodbye to former coworkers, neighbors, friends and family members. The family events and interactions were especially heart-warming and poignant.
Mr. Hoben did not spend his final days in a hospital undergoing extreme measures that would put his quality of life in jeopardy. He was under the care of his physician and a hospice service, but he stayed at home with his loved ones.
Bruce Hoben passed away peacefully and surrounded by family on June 15, 2009.
This book is an excellent resource for families who are facing end-of-life decisions. We will all have to face our own deaths and the deaths of loved ones. This book provides many important subjects to think about. Highly recommended!
MY RATING: 5 STARS OUT OF 5
FYI ~ I received a free digital copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for a fair review.
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A "perfect storm" is brewing for 79 million members of the baby boom generation, according to Colorado physician Karen Wyatt. With advancing age, these individuals must cope with the passing of their parents while also confronting the inevitability of their own death.
"What Really Matters; 7 Lessons for Living from the Stories of the Dying" by Karen M. Wyatt, M.D., is a collection of stories about dying patients and their insights on living and dying.
About The Author
Karen M. Wyatt is a family physician who has spent her 25 year medical career working with patients in challenging settings, such as hospices, nursing homes and indigent clinics. She has founded a free medical clinic in a homeless shelter, accompanied three medical mission teams to Honduras, and led a non-profit clinic for the uninsured in its growth from a 4-hour per week all-volunteer operation to a full-time, full-service medical center.
7 Lessons For Living
This book was written by a physician who has spent many years caring for hospice patients. She wrote this book to share the life lessons that she learned from her patients. The lessons are based on seven statements that Jesus Christ uttered on the cross;
- The meaning of Suffering "I thirst."
- Love and recognizing life's priorities "Woman behold your son; behold your mother."
- Forgiveness and letting go of limiting beliefs and past traumas "Father forgive them for they know not what they are doing."
- Paradise "Truly I say to you today, you will be with me in Paradise."
- The true Purpose of existence "My God, my God for this I was kept (this was the destiny for which I was born.)"
- Surrender and the key to unlocking the flow of grace "O my Father, into thy hands I commit my Spirit."
- Impermanence and transcending fear "It is fulfilled."
This book uses verses from the Bible but it's spiritual focus is not limited to any particular religious belief. The book has a strong message for readers of any faith or philosophy.
The chapters in this book include case studies of specific patients that Dr. Wyatt has worked with in the past. These stories illustrate how patients and their family members can experience profound spiritual growth during the final days of life.
My Thoughts
I read this book because of the experiences that my family had with hospice care when my father suffered from congestive heart failure and passed away in October, 2010.
I found the case studies and the teachings in this book to be very poignant and touching. I found myself in tears many times as I read this book.
I think one of the hardest lessons to learn is that we will all die and that death is not to be feared. We must stop denying death and focus on living lives that really matter. The final chapter in this book provides ideas for implementing the "7 Lessons" in daily life. I think you will find much food for thought in this book. This book will inspire and motivate you to make some changes in your life.
Highly Recommended!
My Rating: 5 Stars Out Of 5
FYI ~ I received a paperback copy of this book to read and review from the author's publicist. Thank you!
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I read Visions, Trips, and Crowded Rooms: Who and What You See Before You Die by David Kessler this week. I read the book in digital format on my Kindle
. I borrowed this book from a fellow member of the Kindle Lending Club.
David Kessler is a well-known expert and lecturer on grief and loss. He co-authored two bestsellers with the legendary Elisabeth Kübler-Ross: On Grief and Grieving: Finding the Meaning of Grief Through the Five Stages of Loss
and Life Lessons: How Our Morality Can Teach Us About Life and Living
.
Mr Kessler shares the stories of doctors, nurses, hospice workers, social workers and family members who have reported the pre-death visions in loved ones during there final days of life. The author has divided these pre-death experiences into three categories:
(1) Visions of deceased loved ones, angels or Jesus entering their room and communicating with them. These images almost always occur in the upper corner of the room. The visions are very real to the patients and usually leave them with a feeling of inner peace and contentment.
(2) Some people believe they are going on a trip when death is near. The book gave examples of very ill patients wanting to pack their bags so that they could catch the bus or train.
(3) Patients sometimes see a crowd of people gathering in their room. Some of the people are unknown by the patient but some are recognized as people that were known in the past but are now deceased. One story told of a woman who had been a school teacher for 40 years. Many of the people gathered in her room were former students and co-workers.
This is the second book that I have reviewed this week on the subject of pre-death visions and experiences. I read Into the Light: Real Life Stories About Angelic Visits, Visions of the Afterlife, and Other Pre-Death Experiences , by John Lerma, and wrote a book review on this blog earlier in the week.
Dr. Lerma's book was much more personal because he wrote about patients that he knew and cared for at the Hospice Center. He went into much more detail about what the patient saw and how he was feeling. Mr. Kessler provided more research on the history of pre-death visions in literature and the arts. He provided many stories about specific pre-death experiences but did not go into the great detail that Dr. Lerma did. Mr. Kessler's book provided more useful facts and information on the terminally ill patient and the process of dying.
Mr. Kessler stated that the purpose of this book was to provide people with hope. A hope that we will someday be reunited with loved ones who have gone before us. This book provides hope and understanding.
I recently read the Kindle
version of Into the Light: Real Life Stories About Angelic Visits, Visions of the Afterlife, and Other Pre-Death Experiences by Dr. John Lerma. I borrowed this book from a fellow member of the Kindle Lending Club. I was drawn to this book because my father was under hospice care for about a month before he died of congestive heart failure. Dr. Lerma is a physician who specializes in hospice and palliative medicine. He worked for many years as the inpatient medical director at the Medical Center Hospice in Houston, Texas. Dr. Lerma states that he interviewed more than two thousand terminally ill patients and recorded more than five hundred pre-death experiences.
The author states that "the religious aspects of the stories come from the individuals and do not necessarily reflect my beliefs, for I am still observing and holding a place of scientific observation and skepticism while considering all of the possibilities."
The patients in this book all experienced visits from deceased loved ones and angels in their final days of life. The author notes that the angels almost always appeared in the upper corners of the room and the loved ones appeared standing at the foot of the bed. The angels helped the patients review their lives and make things right with loved ones. A nine-year-old cancer patient learned from the angels that his death would help his mother find God. A young mother of three was dying of cancer but could not be at peace until she found someone to raise the children after she was gone. The father of two of the children had a vivid dream about his former wife being ill and needing him. He and his wife agreed to raise all three children in a loving, Christian home. A 78-year-old Baptist minister was dying from colon cancer. The angels persuaded him to expresss love to his wife and children. He had been so busy working and preaching that he neglected them most of his life. A man came to Houston from Argentina to receive treatments for lung cancer. He was moved to the hospice house when his death was imminent. He told Dr. Lerma that he had been an officer in Hitler's army during World War II and had participated in the extermination of many innocent people. Angels brought him out of his self-imposed hell of guilt and shame. He died peacefully serveral days later.
I found these accounts of pre-death experiences very interesting. Many of these stories were amazing and hard to believe, but I do believe that God is loving, compassionate, forgiving and very, very good. I pray that I will one day see the Lord and experience His glory!
Several months ago, my dad suffered a major heart attack. The doctors said that his heart valves were leaking and he would not survive a surgery to repair them. He might live a week, month or maybe even a year....but there was no hope for recovery. Basically, he was a dead man walking.
Dad spent a month in the hospital but he really wanted to go back to his beloved home. He seemed to be doing better. He could get out of bed and walk with assistance. He was eating well and said that he was not feeling any pain. Unfortunately, he was plagued with shortness of breath and oxygen hunger.
The decision was made for Dad to go home and my mother would take care of him with the help of a Hospice nurse. He would get up each morning and get dressed. Some days were better than others but he was very happy to be home. He was striving to resume his normal routine and that included going into town and have coffee each morning with his friends.
One day Dad asked the Hospice nurse, "Can I go to the coffee shop"?
The nurse replied, "You can do anything you feel like doing. You can ride a horse if you want to!"
This made Dad feel very happy. Even though he knew what the doctors said, he thought that he must be getting better if he could ride a horse. Of course, he had no desire to ride a horse but he did enjoy joining his friends for coffee for the last couple of weeks of his life.
On the day that he died, my mother drove Dad into town to get a hair cut and then they attended the Rotary luncheon. He spent his last days living life to the fullest and doing exactly what he wanted to do.
I like to think that Dad rode a horse into heaven to meet his Lord on that October evening.
We should live each day to the fullest. We don't know how much time we have left so we should spend our time wisely. Don't wait to live your dreams. You can ride a horse today!
