How Doctors Die: It’s Not Like the Rest of Us, But It Should Be

[FloridaJudy]

21. Every single nurse I know

Has at one time had a pact with another nurse to have him/her stand by and make sure that no one tries to intervene at the death bed, and that the morphine keeps coming, even if it hastens the end. We've seen how most patients die in hospitals, and we have no desire to see that happen to us.

A good friend died of liver cancer this weekend. His lover took him home with her, and he died in her arms. Hospice made sure that there were adequate drugs to relieve his pain, though fortunately he slipped into a coma before it got bad. His family cared for him, bathing and turning him, and there was a constant parade of friends to mop the floors and bring food for the caretakers. When he died, his friends and family cleaned him up, and laid him out in state. He was not embalmed. The next day they took him out to a state conservancy area, dug a hole, and buried him in plain pine box. I don't know how they got permission for this, but I bless the bureaucrat who authorized it!

It's always sad to lose a friend, particularly one only in his fifties, but this was one of the kindest, most dignified deaths I've seen: no heroics, no over-priced funeral to bankrupt the grieving. Just a lot of love.

I'm not a mind-reader, but I suspect that a lot of the other mourners had the same thought I did: How can I arrange something like this for me when the time comes?