During my Kenya mission trip last month I noticed that Good Friday was also Earth Day. Good Friday evokes our immeasurable need for salvation, and Earth Day connotates are ability to save the world. Those are two very different concepts that have opposing understandings of who we are as human beings. That discussion reminds me…
Stinkin’ Thinkin’
Stroke is such a disastrous occurrence. It reduces an otherwise healthy individual to being bedbound, unable to speak, unable to move, & unable to care for his/herself. One of our patients who had lived for several years in that state died a couple of weeks ago. I had visited her several times and observed how…
Non-anonymity
The Texas Hospice team in San Antonio received a late afternoon call to help a hospitalized woman dying of pancreatic cancer. Her last wish was to die at home, comfortably. Within a couple of hours, she was on her way home and one of our nurses delivered just enough morphine to keep her comfortable. She…
Death and dignity
Two years ago I unplugged our cable tv and began using Hulu and Amazon for watching shows. It is refreshing to watch what we want without having to endure the advertising. One of the upshots of it is that until the February Super Bowl I hadn’t seen a commercial in months. And then I saw…
Uprisings and Endings
One of our patients who died last week had a beautiful passing. During her last hours, her daughter played a video of the patient’s husband who had died a few years earlier. The man was saying over and over how he loved his precious wife. On hearing his voice, our patient roused from her coma,…
Who cares?
I am thinking of a dear patient of ours who lives in a memory care facility here in North Texas. When she came on the Texas Hospice service she could walk but only with assistance. Now she is wheelchair confined and requires someone to feed her three times a day. She is exhibiting the classic…
Do all things really work together, and for good?
There is a elderly couple whose family is talking to us about receiving hospice care. One has dementia and other has significant heart disease. The one with heart disease desires badly to get home so he can resume his life and return to caretaking his wife. Unfortunately, his heart is weakening and he remains hospitalized….
You lay in the bed you make
I am thinking about a particular patient of mine this morning. He is a wonderful guy who would bring quarters to my office hoping to give them to my 6-year-old daughter who sometimes joined me in morning clinic. Despite having a terrible illness for many years, he conducted himself with a wonderful attitude. He was…
A Belated RIP for Jack Kemp
Here in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where we are vacationing, the landscape is beautiful, the food is wonderful, and altitude is disaffecting our experience. Both boys were sick today (winding roads and hot ski gear). I could hardly catch my breath while trying my hand at snowboarding. And our daughter left ski school early ….
A lesson from Aslan
I am reading a book called, “Curfewed Night,” Basharat Peer’s retelling of growing up in Kashmir during a war. I think of Kashmir sweaters, and otherwise don’t know much about that area of the world. I have found out that it is where mostly Muslim families grow mustard, and the land is part of disputed…
