Metastatic Liver Cancer | I’m willing to stay alive, if I’m able to eat chocolate ice cream and watch football on TV

I’m willing to stay alive, if I’m able to eat chocolate ice cream and watch football on TV

Stay Alive

When you are at the crossroads, having to choose between:

the question to ask the patient is:

“If time becomes short, what is most important to you?”

 

Jack Block, a professor emeritus of psychology, when found a mass growing in the spinal cord of his neck, answered the above question with:

Well, if I’m able to eat chocolate ice cream and watch football on TV, then I’m willing to stay alive. I’m willing to go through a lot of pain if I have a shot at that.’

Quality of life can only be defined by every individual patient. Wouldn’t you be happy when you know what your loved one wants in order to be happy, considering the circumstances?

However many patients choose for ‘any treatment to prologue life’ in order to make their friends and family members happy. Meanwhile the family members are trying to find out what they can do to make the patient happy…

To be sure both patient and loved ones get the most out of the little time left with each other, we need someone experienced and knowledgeable to talk to: hospice:

Read the complete article found by Chibi at http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/08/02/100802fa_fact_gawande?currentPage=all.

This post is dedicated to Kath-e - the whole truth about metastatic liver cancer – who kept on finding the energy to emphasize the importance of hospice, in a time when Kath-e’s body was asking her to take an infinite rest.

Bottom line:

However, to really find out what the patient wants, we need experienced people to sit down with them and ask the right questions.

Leave a Comment

Comments

Leave a Reply

  • Share this post with the rest of the world: STUMBLE IT! Thanks! :-)




*
To prove you're a person (not a spam script), type the security word shown in the picture. Click on the picture to hear an audio file of the word.
Click to hear an audio file of the anti-spam word