Dying In Good Hands

Massage has many physical and emotional benefits for patients in palliative care, from preventing pressure sores and lessening physical pain to creating a tangible connection between the massager and the massaged. In Dying in Good Hands, massage therapists and trainees will find the tools they need for massage at every stage of dying, with stroke sequences adjusted for the unique needs of palliative bodies. Medical professionals will learn how to use massage techniques on their patients and how to teach basic techniques to others. And family and friends, even those who have never massaged before, will discover tips to provide hands-on care and support for loved ones in their final moments. Topics include: - Basic massage strokes and full-body massage routines, - Massage treatments to aid the key areas of the respiratory system, digestion, and circulation, - How to deal with the last moments of life and make the last breath more comfortable, - Massage ideas for the physical and emotional needs of family, friends, and caregivers, - Options on where to die, including hospitals, hospices, and home, - Featuring real patient stories that showcase the power of massage in making the process of dying more comfortable.

Use the healing power of touch for a healthier, happier pregnancy. Pregnancy is an exciting time full of promise, but most women could do without symptoms such as back pain, headaches, nausea, and swollen feet—luckily, many of these conditions can be treated with massage. Touch has the power to heal, calm, and nurture relationships. Christine Sutherland, co-founder of the Sutherland-Chan School and Teaching Clinic, teaches the basics of prenatal massage for healthy pregnancies. From the first trimester to postpartum recovery, Christine’s healing methods will help moms-to-be through every stage of pregnancy, including childbirth and breastfeeding. There’s even a chapter on the basics of baby massage, which new parents, grandparents, and siblings can use to relieve common infant conditions and bond with the new child. Hundreds of photos and illustrations clearly illustrate techniques that even beginners can master. Christine also includes real-life stories that showcase how the power of massage helped women through their own pregnancy journeys. If your partner or loved one is expecting, this book is for you.

Master the art of wheelchair massage Wheelchairs open a world of mobility to those who use them. Yet the immobility of prolonged sitting can lead to health issues that can greatly impact a wheeler’s quality of life. The hands-on care of therapeutic massage helps wheelers get the most out of their chairs by alleviating the many digestive, respiratory, circulatory, and strain issues that stem from wheelchair use and by supporting wheelers’ emotional well-being. Pioneering massage educator Christine Sutherland gathers her decades of experience working with wheelers to teach you the art of wheelchair massage in, out of, and even from the chair. Whether you’re a professional massage therapist or a complete beginner, Christine’s step-by-step approach will teach you everything you need to know to bring the healing power of touch to the wheelers in your life. Contains over 350 illustrations and linked instructional video libraries. Learn the skills: - Basic strokes for wheelchair massage - Massaging techniques for in-chair massage - Full-body and issue-specific massage routines - Underwater massage - Reciprocity Understand the needs: - Wheelchair athletes - Stroke recovery wheelers - Wheelers with spinal cord injuries - Wheelers with chronic neurological conditions - Geriatric wheelers - Palliative wheelers Maternity wheelers

Award-winning physician Philip C. Hébert creates a brave and intimate portrait of the complex ethical imperatives at the heart of good medicine: doctors do not have all the answers; patients must be heard; and their needs, desires, fears, and experiences must be reflected in how practitioners look after them. Medical science continues to advance to previously unimagined heights in its diagnostic and treatment capabilities. With these advances, however, come unexpected ethical dilemmas for practitioners, patients, and families. In Good Medicine, Dr. Hébert approaches these questions of pressing and fundamental importance from the dual point of view of acclaimed physician and long-time patient. With remarkable balance and sensitivity, he explores a range of politically, constitutionally, and ethically contentious matters, including assisted suicide, treatment refusal and suspension, and the overall allocation of medical resources. Hébert pairs his artful analysis with the real-life, often deeply moving stories of those who have lived these challenges. Hébert offers piercing and compassionate insight into the relationship between patients and medical professionals, and guides readers towards the open and empathetic communication needed to ensure good medicine for everyone.

Named a Most Anticipated Book of 2020 by: The Washington Post, Vogue, Marie Claire, Entertainment Weekly, The Millions, New York Magazine, Paste Magazine, LitHub, E! News Online, and many more From one of our most ceaselessly provocative literary talents, a novel of haunting metaphysical suspense about an elderly widow whose life is upturned when she finds an ominous note on a walk in the woods. While on her daily walk with her dog in a secluded woods, a woman comes across a note, handwritten and carefully pinned to the ground by stones. "Her name was Magda. Nobody will ever know who killed her. It wasn't me. Here is her dead body." But there is no dead body. Our narrator is deeply shaken; she has no idea what to make of this. She is new to this area, alone after the death of her husband, and she knows no one. Becoming obsessed with solving this mystery, our narrator imagines who Magda was and how she met her fate. With very little to go on, she invents a list of murder suspects and possible motives for the crime. Oddly, her suppositions begin to find correspondences in the real world, and with mounting excitement and dread, the fog of mystery starts to fade into menacing certainty. As her investigation widens, strange dissonances accrue, perhaps associated with the darkness in her own past; we must face the prospect that there is either an innocent explanation for all this or a much more sinister one. A triumphant blend of horror, suspense, and pitch-black comedy, Death in Her Hands asks us to consider how the stories we tell ourselves both reflect the truth and keep us blind to it. Once again, we are in the hands of a narrator whose unreliability is well earned, and the stakes have never been higher.

This “comforting…thoughtful” (The Washington Post) guide to maintaining a high quality of life—from resilient old age to the first inklings of a serious illness to the final breath—by the New York Times bestselling author of Knocking on Heaven’s Door is a “roadmap to the end that combines medical, practical, and spiritual guidance” (The Boston Globe). “A common sense path to define what a ‘good’ death looks like” (USA TODAY), The Art of Dying Well is about living as well as possible for as long as possible and adapting successfully to change. Packed with extraordinarily helpful insights and inspiring true stories, award-winning journalist Katy Butler shows how to thrive in later life (even when coping with a chronic medical condition), how to get the best from our health system, and how to make your own “good death” more likely. Butler explains how to successfully age in place, why to pick a younger doctor and how to have an honest conversation with them, when not to call 911, and how to make your death a sacred rite of passage rather than a medical event. This handbook of preparations—practical, communal, physical, and spiritual—will help you make the most of your remaining time, be it decades, years, or months. Based on Butler’s experience caring for aging parents, and hundreds of interviews with people who have successfully navigated our fragmented health system and helped their loved ones have good deaths, The Art of Dying Well also draws on the expertise of national leaders in family medicine, palliative care, geriatrics, oncology, and hospice. This “empowering guide clearly outlines the steps necessary to prepare for a beautiful death without fear” (Shelf Awareness).

THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER! "I had the choice to come back ... or not. I chose to return when I realized that 'heaven' is a state, not a place" In this truly inspirational memoir, Anita Moorjani relates how, after fighting cancer for almost four years, her body began shutting down—overwhelmed by the malignant cells spreading throughout her system. As her organs failed, she entered into an extraordinary near-death experience where she realized her inherent worth . . . and the actual cause of her disease. Upon regaining consciousness, Anita found that her condition had improved so rapidly that she was released from the hospital within weeks—without a trace of cancer in her body! Within this enhanced e-book, Anita recounts—in words and on video—stories of her childhood in Hong Kong, her challenge to establish her career and find true love, as well as how she eventually ended up in that hospital bed where she defied all medical knowledge. In "Dying to Be Me," Anita Freely shares all she has learned about illness, healing, fear, "being love," and the true magnificence of each and every human being!

Following the death of her father, journalist and hospice volunteer Ann Neumann sets out to examine what it means to die well in the United States. When Ann Neumann’s father was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, she left her job and moved back to her hometown of Lancaster, Pennsylvania. She became his full-time caregiver—cooking, cleaning, and administering medications. When her father died, she was undone by the experience, by grief and the visceral quality of dying. Neumann struggled to put her life back in order and found herself haunted by a question: Was her father’s death a good death? The way we talk about dying and the way we actually die are two very different things, she discovered, and many of us are shielded from what death actually looks like. To gain a better understanding, Neumann became a hospice volunteer and set out to discover what a good death is today. She attended conferences, academic lectures, and grief sessions in church basements. She went to Montana to talk with the attorney who successfully argued for the legalization of aid in dying, and to Scranton, Pennsylvania, to listen to “pro-life” groups who believe the removal of feeding tubes from some patients is tantamount to murder. Above all, she listened to the stories of those who were close to death. What Neumann found is that death in contemporary America is much more complicated than we think. Medical technologies and increased life expectancies have changed the very definition of medical death. And although death is our common fate, it is also a divisive issue that we all experience differently. What constitutes a good death is unique to each of us, depending on our age, race, economic status, culture, and beliefs. What’s more, differing concepts of choice, autonomy, and consent make death a contested landscape, governed by social, medical, legal, and religious systems. In these pages, Neumann brings us intimate portraits of the nurses, patients, bishops, bioethicists, and activists who are shaping the way we die. The Good Death presents a fearless examination of how we approach death, and how those of us close to dying loved ones live in death’s wake.