Monthly Archives: March 2016

True Confessions: I AM a “NAGGER” *

Elizabeth Hurlow-Hannah is nothing less than ONE BIG NAG and I will be indebted to her for being such for the rest of my life.

The truth of the matter is that Elizabeth has been a very good and close friend of my wife and me for almost twenty years now. But in the last several years, she has been reminding me that I should put my will, health advance directive and other end-of-life papers in order.  When she became aware that I was procrastinating on getting this matter accomplished, she became a bit more forceful in reminding me how important this matter is. To get this dear friend off my back, my wife and I went to an elder-law attorney about a year ago and had the appropriate papers drawn up. We both indicated in our advance health directives that we wanted no extraordinary resuscitation measures to be taken in case of a health crisis, including feeding tubes. Continue reading

Give Grief Space to Breathe

Guest Blogger: Kim Adams, Certified End of Life and Grief Coach

Grief is the natural, common response to a loss. And loss is a human experience. Therefore, we each experience loss in one form or another. We tend to most often think of grief after the death of a loved one. However, grief occurs along the journey — along the journey of life (divorce, loss of friendships, job loss, etc.) and along the caregiver journey.  We can experience the anticipation of loss — grief that our loved one is no longer the person they once were with diminished physical abilities and/or diminished mental capabilities especially with dementia or Alzheimer’s disease. And in addition, the loss of our own identity, including the the loss we feel as our role of caregiver will ultimately change. Continue reading