I remember one of my professors telling me that a good teacher will present at the level of the listeners. He had just finished talking about how the earth was a sphere, and that it generated gravitational force, and so on. When the class was over, he told me that actually the earth wasn’t perfectly…
Category Archives: Pain Management
Receiving Hospice AND Curative Treatment
The new health bill sets up 15 studies to look at offering curative treatment to hospice patients. That sounds counter-intuitive, but there is a reason for the provision. Most of the time, there are no curative options for hospice patients. Good examples are emphysema patients that have exhausted all possible lung treatments. These folks need…
Happiness Level Four
The Kansas City Star reported on a special graduation ceremony held for a terminally-ill high-school student: Connor Olson graduated from Tonganoxie High School on Thursday. He was the only graduate. He brought his parents, his grandma — and his hospice nurse. Connor has spent an exhaustive year fighting bone cancer, with one round of chemo,…
One last goodbye
One of our patients who suffered from metastatic prostate cancer died this past week. Hospice services kept him relatively pain free, and he seemed to me to be a man of faith. His main complaint was the incredible swelling in his lower body. The cancer had blocked venous return, and not even palliative radiation was…
