Description
Book SynopsisA vital roadmap to planning your own end-of-life care. While modern Americans strive to control nearly every aspect of their lives, many of us abandon control of life's final passage. But the realities of twenty-first-century medicine will allow most of us to have a say in how, when, and where we die, so we need to make decisions surrounding death, too. Or those decisions may be made for us. Threading compelling real-life stories and practical guidance throughout, this book helps readers navigate end-of-life care for themselves and their loved ones. In this practical guidebook, Dr. Dan Morhaim and Shelley Morhaim offer readers hope, empowerment, and inspiration. What we choose for our end-of-life care, they assert, depends on accurate information and on our personal values. We need these not only to understand new medical advances but also to appreciate the wisdom of humanity's past and present. Dan Morhaim, an emergency medicine physician and former Maryland state legislator, guid
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments
Introduction. Why Not the Best of Both Worlds?
Chapter 1. My Dog Got Better Care Than My Mother
Chapter 2. Taking Charge: Advance Directives and Choosing the Care You Want
Chapter 3. A Different Choice: Do Everything
Chapter 4. Cure vs. Healing: Palliative Care and Hospice
Chapter 5. Whom Do You Trust? Choosing Your Health Care Agent
Chapter 6. It's Not Just about Old People: When Tragedy Strikes the Young
Chapter 7. No Easy Answers: Dementia, the System, and Getting It Right
Chapter 8. Assisted Suicide, Assisted Dying, and VSED
Chapter 9. Pain, Anxiety, and Drugs, Drugs, Drugs
Chapter 10. What's Stopping Us
Chapter 11. Gifts of Life: Organ Donation, Funerals, and Cemeteries
Chapter 12. No Job Is Complete Until the Paperwork Is Done: Making It Legal
Chapter 13. Help, We Need Somebody: Providing Support
Chapter 14. The Better End: Surviving (and Dying) on Your Own Terms in Today's Modern Medical World
Chapter 15. Speaking Personally
Glossary
Resources
Index
