The In Between

 

In The In-Between, Hadley Vlahos, a young hospice nurse, recounts the most impactful experiences she’s had with the people she’s worked with—from the woman who never once questioned her faith until she was close to death, to the older man seeing visions of his late daughter, to the young patient who laments that she spent too much of her short life worrying about what others thought of her—while also sharing her own fascinating journey.

 The book is written with profound insight, humility, and respect. The In-Between is a heartrending memoir that shows how caring for others can transform a life while also offering wisdom and comfort for those dealing with loss and providing inspiration for how to live now.  [The preceding is part of a blurb on the Barnes and Noble website - and I agree with it.  I listened to the Audible.com version (read by the author and it was a great pleasure as well as a valuable learning opportunity).

DJE: This was a beautiful book.  It springs from the experiences of a wise and insightful young nurse and is an invaluable resource for anyone  involved with caring for a dying person. I would never have stumbled upon The In-Between had not Tigger and Jim Bruenn given me a copy.  I am grateful to them!

If you want to read my notes, they are on GoogleDocs.  Please email me and I'll send you a link.

Also see, In My Time of Dying, by Sebastian Junger.  Junger's book has many useful references.

At The End of Life (2012)

True Stories about How We Die

-->

Lee Gutkind, Editor

What should medicine do when it can’t save your life?

The modern healthcare system has become proficient at staving off death with aggressive interventions. And yet, eventually everyone dies—and although most Americans say they would prefer to die peacefully at home, more than half of all deaths take place in hospitals or health care facilities.

At the End of Life tackles this conundrum head on. Featuring twenty-two compelling personal-medical narratives, the collection explores death, dying and palliative care, and highlights current features, flaws and advances in the healthcare system.

Here, a poet and former hospice worker reflects on death’s mysteries; a son wanders the halls of his mother’s nursing home, lost in the small absurdities of the place; a grief counselor struggles with losing his own grandfather; a medical intern traces the origins and meaning of time; a mother anguishes over her decision to turn off her daughter’s life support and allow her organs to be harvested; and a nurse remembers many of her former patients.

These original, compelling personal narratives reveal the inner workings of hospitals, homes and hospices where patients, their doctors and their loved ones all battle to hang on—and to let go.

DJE: These are remarkable vignettes that are really worth reading.  To savor them, they might best be read in small doses.

A Healing Touch (2008)

True Stories of Life, Death and Hospice
From Booklist: Pulitzer Prize–winning novelist Russo (Empire Falls, 2001) edits and, with five others, contributes to this tiny collection of stories of people who have benefited from grief intervention via hospice. While the focus is parochial—all contributors are Mainers who worked with the Waterville, Maine, hospice—the message is universal: hospice counseling is not, as many believe, limited to preparation for death but may help those who have already lost a loved one. In fact, the majority of these accounts are about families who have experienced a child’s sudden, unexpected death: the mother of marine Major Jay T. Aubin, the first American casualty in Operation Iraqi Freedom; the parents of a teenage suicide victim; those of a son killed in a car crash; and a father who lost his infant son. Members of several of these families now voluntarily give their time and expertise to the Waterville hospice. At once heartbreaking and hopeful, the stories become all the more poignant as each author personalizes them with references to his or her own experience of loss. --Donna Chavez

I found this profoundly moving and worth reading. It is short and contains six moving stories. Well worth getting and reading. DJE