Maggie
Callanan, along with Patricia Kelley, wrote “Final Gifts”, a groundbreaking
book about how people die. “Final Journeys” is a companion book and focuses on
the care giver’s role and how they can best help the dying and take care of
themselves at the same time. She explains how entering hospice care is not ‘giving
up’, what paperwork the dying (which is all of us, really) should have
completed to make things easier for themselves and their loved ones, that it’s
okay for the dying and the family to laugh and joke, and why you shouldn’t call
911 if the person does not want aggressive resuscitation.
Callanan is a
veteran hospice nurse with 27 years of experience working with the dying at the
time she wrote this book. She’s helped innumerable families as a member passes
on, and has seen all sorts of scenarios. In this book, she answers a lot of the
questions that people have about giving care to a family member facing death. She
doesn’t just dwell on the dying person, but on what the care giver experiences;
how different people react to the impending death of a loved one; how they grieve;
and various options for end of life care. The book is written in an easy to
read style, even when dealing with medical details. I’m not a stranger to caregiving
and dealing with death and I learned a lot from this book, especially about
family dynamics.
The above is an affiliate link. If you click through and buy something, Amazon will give me a few cents. This did not affect my review.
No comments:
Post a Comment