By Katherine Kam
Hospice differs from palliative care, which serves anyone who is seriously ill, not just those who are dying and no longer seeking a cure.
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CLEAR ALL
With each diagnosis, knowing her life hung in the balance, she was “stunned, then anguished” and astonished by “how much energy it takes to get from the bad news to actually starting on the return path to health.”
Linda Fox of Brooklyn donated a lobe of her liver to save her husband, whose own liver had failed. The transplant took, and Ms. Fox said although recovery from the surgery was no picnic, she would willingly do it again.
Studies of dying patients who seek a hastened death have shown that their reasons often go beyond physical ones like intractable pain or emotional ones like feeling hopeless.
My Feb. 5 column, “A Heartfelt Appeal for a Graceful Exit,” prompted a deluge of information and requests for information on how people too sick to reap meaningful pleasure from life might be able to control their death.
Though I wince at the redundancy, funeral “pre-planning” is a phenomenon receiving increased attention, and a growing number of Web-based guides tell how to go about it. As www.funerals.org puts it: “Funeral planning starts at home.