Jane Brody writes about palliative care at end of life for her husband of 43 years in the New York Times. Her column is moving and tender.
"This is a very personal story of living gracefully with a fatal diagnosis. When I wrote Jane Brody’s Guide to the Great Beyond, I had no idea that I’d be putting its precepts into practice in my immediate family within a year of publication. But as I said in the book, 'You never know.' You never know when your time will be up, and so it is best to prepare for the end sooner rather than later.
"On Feb. 2, we learned that my husband of 43 years had Stage 4 lung cancer. There was no asking 'Why me?' Richard knew very well why. He’d been a pack-a-day smoker for 50 years. Although he quit for good more than 15 years ago, it was far too late. After a few weeks of encroaching weakness and coughing, a PET scan showed that cancer was ravaging his body, taking up residence in both lungs (along with emphysema), in his spine, his adrenal glands and his brain. It was inoperable and incurable. He was looking at weeks or months of remaining life, maybe a year at most."
Jane Brody's column ">When the Only Hope is a Peaceful Ending" here.
My friend Wendy Harpham's blog about Jane's column is here.
Jane Brody has long written for the New York Times. In the past few years, she has been on leave from her regular columns, contributing occasionally on issues related to health and aging. First, it was her mother's death. Jane took some time off and wrote a wonderful book "Jane Brody's Guide to the Great Beyond," helpful to the legions of family caregivers tending to parents or other loved ones at life's end. I wrote here about her book on April 12, 2009.
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